


Damned Spot

by queenofkadara



Series: Underneath It All: Fenris & Rynne Hawke [11]
Category: Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Angst and Porn, Crimes & Criminals, F/M, Falling In Love, Modern AU, Modern Era, Mutual Pining, Organized Crime, POV Fenris (Dragon Age), POV Hawke, Romance, Smut, Suspense, Thriller
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-03-21
Packaged: 2019-10-24 19:26:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 59,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17710157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenofkadara/pseuds/queenofkadara
Summary: The new white-haired bouncer at the Hanged Man was hot. That's about all that Hawke knew about him. But it wouldn't hurt to get to know a co-worker a little better, would it?No, it wouldn't hurt. But it would involve more pining, red wine, and alotmore blood than she'd anticipated.***************Also known as: CRACK MODERN AU where Hawke and her BFF Piper Lavellan are bartenders at the Hanged Man, Varric is the owner of the Hanged Man, Fenris has a shady fucking past, and Cullen is a Good Guy Lawyer™. NSFW smut.This AU Fenris and Hawke are based on my canon Fenhawke, who you can read about inthe rest of this series.





	1. Hot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Dedicated to [@schoute on Tumblr,](http://schoute.tumblr.com/) who planted the idea for this stupid modern AU in my brain by asking what career Rynne Hawke and Fenris would have in modern times. A FEW HOURS LATER, HERE WE ARE.
> 
> All Piper Lavellan are belong to Schoute. Check out her Tumblr to see some incredible Cullavellan art.

I need a gangster  
To love me better  
Than all the others do  
To always forgive me  
Ride or die with me  
That's just what gangsters do

\-- ["Gangsta" by Kehlani](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAYgZEMMWxo)  
*********************

“Hey, Hawke! The new bouncer is here,” Varric called.

Rynne looked up from her extremely fascinating task of wiping down the bar, and her eyebrows jumped so high they almost flew off her face.

The first thing she noticed about the new bouncer was the hair. The last time she’d seen hair that white was in the episode of _Inuyasha_ she and Piper had been watching that morning.

The second thing she noticed was that the bouncer was probably the hottest guy she’d ever laid eyes on. 

Varric patted the bouncer on the elbow. “Hawke, this is Fenris. Fenris, Hawke.” 

Fenris gave her a curt unsmiling nod. Which naturally meant that Rynne couldn’t help but smile at him like a fool. She waved an expansive arm at the pub. “Welcome to the Hanged Man,” she announced. “Kirkwall’s finest alcohol-serving dump.” 

“Hey, I resent that,” Varric protested. “You’re the one who begged me to hire you at this alcohol-serving dump.” 

She leaned her elbows on the bar and winked at Varric. “Of course I did. This is the only alcohol-serving dump in the city that has karaoke.”

“Karaoke?” Fenris said. 

Rynne stopped breathing for a split second. His voice. _His voice._ Maker’s balls, she’d never heard a voice that deep and growly and dripping with suspicion. 

“Yeah, karaoke,” she said. She smirked at him. “Do you sing?”

He huffed in disdain and looked away from her. “Absolutely not.” 

_Ooh, he’s so cranky,_ she thought, with yet another surge of (probably ill-advised) interest. And so gorgeous, and with such a gorgeous voice… 

She needed to hear him talk some more. She straightened up and jerked her head at the storeroom. “Piper is in the back room,” she told Varric. “She’ll want to meet our handsome new bouncer too, right?”

“Yeah, she will,” Varric said. He raised his eyebrows pointedly at her.

She shot him a wheedling smile and didn’t budge. 

Varric stared at her for a moment longer, then sighed and headed toward the storeroom to fetch Piper. “You do know that I’m the boss of this place, right?” he called over his shoulder.

“Of course!” Rynne yelled after him. “The best boss in all of Thedas!”

Varric ruefully shook his head as he disappeared into the storeroom, and Rynne turned back to Fenris with a smile. “He really is a good boss,” she informed him. “Stick around for two months and you’ll get healthcare benefits. Best of all, he lets us try the really classy spirits and wine when the new shipments come in.” 

Fenris met her eyes. “You carry wine at this bar?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Of course. How lowbrow do you think this place is?”

He glanced around the pub, with its low ceilings and its quirky decor of framed mugshots of celebrity criminals from across Thedas. The walls were painted a dark red, and the ceiling was black and the lighting was dim and warm, and Rynne loved it. 

Fenris turned back to her and shrugged. “It’s… difficult for me to judge such things. I am not from Kirkwall.”

She leaned her elbows on the bar again. “I figured. That’s an interesting accent you’ve got there.” Not to mention an interestingly… _cultivated_ way of speaking. It was unexpected in a bouncer, at least in Rynne’s experience.

“Mm,” he confirmed. He looked away again and said nothing more.

Rynne watched him curiously for a minute, then returned to wiping down the bar. She studied him surreptitiously as she worked, her curiosity only growing with every moment. Not only did he not sound like a bouncer, but he didn’t look like one either; he was of average height, less than half a foot taller than her, and his build was quite slim from what she could see through his plain black jacket and hoodie and T-shirt. He held himself in a way that suggested he didn’t want to be looked at, which was odd as well, especially given his bright white hair and his striking tattoos.

At least Rynne _thought_ they were tattoos. She couldn’t imagine what else those trailing white lines on his chin and neck could be. 

Suddenly he looked at her and frowned. “What?”

She hastily shifted her gaze from his throat back to his eyes. “Nothing,” she said brightly. “Want a drink?”

He narrowed his eyes. “You would drink on the job?” 

She huffed in amusement. “It’s just one drink. And there are no customers here yet.” She took down a bottle of tequila and poured herself a shot, then raised her eyebrows. “Besides, why do you care? Are you a policeman in disguise or something?”

He snorted. “I most certainly am not,” he said, much to Rynne’s interest. He paused and eyed the bottle of tequila, then nodded graciously. “I will have one. A small one. Thank you.” 

“Such fine manners,” she purred as she poured him a scant shot. “I like that in a man.” 

He shook his head and chuckled - the first sound of mirth she’d yet heard him make. “You speak your mind, I’ll give you that.”

 _I’ll give you a lot more than that,_ Rynne thought salaciously; her belly was buzzing with heat at the mere sound of his laugh. Then she bit her lip before the errant thought could slip out of her mouth. That might be a little _too_ much for a first meeting, perhaps. 

She raised her shot. “Cheers,” she said. 

He raised his drink as well. “ _Benefaris_ ,” he said, and he downed it smoothly. 

Rynne swallowed her shot and raised her eyebrows with fresh surprise. “Was that Tevene I just heard?” 

Fenris frowned again - very briefly this time, as though he was annoyed at himself instead of at her. “Yes,” he said reluctantly, and he folded his arms. 

That was it. She _had_ to know more. Carver was always telling her not to be so nosy, but this strange and handsome elf was just too intriguing. 

She leaned her elbows on the bar again. “Come on, Fenris. What’s your story?” she asked.

He frowned more deeply, then glanced toward the storeroom. “There is no story,” he grunted. 

Rynne settled her weight comfortably on one hip. “Of course there is. Everyone has a story. Some are just more interesting than others.” She lifted her chin in challenge. “I suspect yours is very interesting indeed.” 

He eyed her in silence for a while, and she waited with bated breath for his reply. 

Finally he spoke. “What about you, Hawke? What sort of a name is that?”

“Oh,” she said, then gave a little laugh as she straightened up. “It’s my family name. My first name is Rynne, but everyone calls me Hawke. Much to my brother’s chagrin, I can tell you. He would love to be ‘the’ Hawke in Kirkwall.” She placed her empty shot glass in the sink, then held out her hand for his. “What about you?”

He handed her the shot glass. “What _about_ me?”

She shot him a chiding look. “What’s your family name?” she asked. 

He suddenly shot her a piercing glare, and Rynne actually froze for a moment at the intensity of his expression.

His mild-and-surly manner was gone. There was an odd, dangerous kind of stillness about him now, almost as though he could lash out at the slightest provocation, and _now_ Rynne understood how a man of his height and stature could be a bouncer. A person didn’t need to be packed with muscle to be terrifying. 

They stared at each other for a loaded moment. When Fenris finally relaxed, Rynne exhaled as well.

He rested his palms on the bar, and Rynne noticed that those unusual white tattoos extended along the backs of his hands to the edge of his fingernails. “I don’t have a family name,” he said quietly. 

“Sorry,” she said automatically. She wasn’t sure why she was apologizing; it wasn’t that odd to not have a family name, after all, especially for city elves. But for some reason, she felt like she should.

Or maybe she shouldn’t have. Fenris scowled at her, then looked away once more. “Don’t apologize. There’s nothing to feel sorry for.”

She swallowed hard. Then she smiled winningly at him. “Got it. I’ll never apologize to you again,” she said cheerfully. “Not even when I spit in your drinks by accident.”

He raised one eyebrow at her, and her heart gave a hopeful little thump at the slight smirk that curled the corner of his lips. “I did not realize it was possible to spit in a drink by accident.” 

She shrugged casually. “You’ve got me. It’s not. Best make sure you don’t piss me off.” She tapped his knuckle playfully. 

He instantly pulled his hands away and tucked them in his jacket pockets. Then Piper’s voice broke in. “Hey there! Is this our new recruit?” she asked brightly. 

Rynne straightened and smiled at her best friend and roommate. “Pipes, this is Fenris. Fenris, this is Piper Lavellan, the second best bartender in all of Kirkwall.” 

Piper gave her a rough shove. “Fuck off. You know I can pour faster than you.” 

“I didn’t say ‘faster’. I said ‘better’,” Rynne corrected cockily, then cackled as Piper pinched her arm. 

Fenris eyed them in silence until they settled down, then took a step back from the bar. “I should find Varric,” he said quietly. “Get oriented to my… role.” He nodded politely to Piper. “It is nice to meet you,” he said. Then he slid his eyes to Rynne.

He gazed at her in silence for a moment, and a funny little jolt of excitement trickled down her throat as she stared back at him. His irises were so fucking green. It was like a forest had come to life in his eyes. She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen such beautiful eyes. 

He nodded once more, jolting her from her reverie. “Hawke,” he said. “Thank you for the drink.” He turned and made his way toward the storeroom. 

Rynne watched him as he walked away. Then Piper whistled softly. “Well, he’s hot.” 

“I saw him first,” Rynne said quickly.

Piper laughed. “He’s all yours. Cullen is more than enough man for me.” She wiggled her eyebrows salaciously. “Besides, I wouldn’t date a guy whose hair colour is nicer than mine.” She ran a hand across her long silvery braid and tilted her head. “How do you think he got his hair such a pure shade of white?”

Rynne leaned thoughtfully against the bar. “I don’t think it’s dyed.” 

Piper’s eyes widened. “You mean you think that hair colour is natural? There’s no fucking way.” 

Rynne smirked. “You should ask him if he dyes it. I bet he’d love that.”

Piper chuckled, then shot Rynne a knowing look. “Or maybe _you_ should ask him. Get to know him better. Maybe ask him if the carpet matches the drapes.” 

Rynne barked out a laugh and shoved her friend. “Come on, I know you elves don’t have any pubes to speak of. Fucking unfair is what I call that.” 

“Oh, let’s not talk about your gross human pubes again,” Piper groaned. She turned away to unpack the dishwasher. 

“Bitch,” Rynne laughed, then returned to wiping down the poor neglected bar. But as she and Piper fell into their usual pre-opening hours routine, her thoughts drifted back to their mysterious new bouncer. 

There was definitely a story there. His little comment about the city guard, and his weird furtive manner, and that _very_ weird danger she’d sensed from him… He was probably a criminal. Or an ex-con. But he was so well-spoken and polite. And those odd tattoos on his chin and neck and hands…

 _I wonder if they’re all over his body,_ she thought idly. Then she smirked at herself. She was such an idiot. Everything about this Fenris character screamed trouble. The last thing she should be doing was trying to weasel herself into his good graces. 

But when had Rynne Hawke ever been able to stay out of trouble?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Housekeeping:  
> \- Updates will be... once a week? Every two weeks? I'm simultaneously working on two longfics (never done that before!) so updates may be less frequent than my usual!  
> \- Feel free to subscribe for notification of updates!
> 
> I am [Pikapeppa on Tumblr](https://pikapeppa.tumblr.com/) for those who would like to scream Fenhawke at me! xoxo


	2. Attachments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Note: in this AU, there is no Bethany. I just couldn't find a place for her in this particular AU, especially given the circumstances of her death in the canon story.

Piper curled her feet up on the couch and lifted her mug. “All I’m saying is that maybe you should try a different strategy. Your usual ‘I’m hot, you’re hot, let’s bang’ routine doesn’t seem to be working with our resident broody bouncer.”

Rynne groaned as she poured a dash of milk into her tea. “But that’s the only routine I have,” she complained. “And it usually works so well.” 

Piper snorted into her coffee. “You could always try having, you know, a normal conversation with him.” 

Rynne sighed heavily as she joined Piper on the couch. “Well, maybe I just enjoy torturing myself with my futile attempts. He frowns at me so often that it’s like getting a hit of lyrium when he _actually_ smiles.” 

Piper elbowed her gently. “As if you would know what a hit of lyrium felt like.”

Rynne gave her a rueful little half-smile. “True enough.” 

Piper patted her knee sympathetically, then gulped back the rest of her coffee and hopped up from the couch. “Well, I’ve got to go. I’m going to be late for lunch.”

Rynne stretched her legs out on the coffee table and idly picked up a nearby fashion magazine. “All right. Tell the handsome Mr. Rutherford I said hello.” 

Piper smirked as she pulled on her boots. “Sure you don’t want to join us? You’re not going over to help your mum this afternoon, are you?”

Rynne shook her head. “No. She hasn’t texted or called, so I’m going to assume she’s fine on her own for once. But I won’t crash your date with Cullen. I’m good here - I might make some cookies for Isabela. She’ll probably be starving when she gets home. You know how she fucking hates craft service food.” 

Piper smiled. “Aw, that’s a good idea. She gets back from her film shoot tomorrow afternoon, right?”

“Yeah,” Rynne said. “And Merrill will be back from that, um… what is that thing called again?”

Piper shook her head in fond amusement. “The Arlathvhen. The clan meeting -”

“Right, right,” Rynne said hastily. “The Arlathvhen. She’ll be back from that in another week. I bet Bels will want to throw a party when we’re all home together again.”

Piper grinned wickedly. “Ooh, I certainly hope so. I need a good excuse to make Cullen grind with me. He never wants to dance in public at the Hanged Man.” 

Rynne smirked. “Of course he doesn’t want to dance with you in public. You’re a filthy bitch when you’ve had a few drinks.”

Piper cackled. “You know me too well.” She grabbed her bike helmet from the hall closet and opened the door. “All right, _lethallan_ , I’ll see you later.”

“Bye,” Rynne said absently. She flicked through the magazine for a few minutes, then pulled out her phone and tapped through to her contacts. 

She scrolled through the contacts until she found Fenris’s number. She stared at it for a few seconds until she began to feel like a stalker, then tossed the phone onto the coffee table. She’d managed to get his number ostensibly on the grounds of work-related emergencies, but she hadn’t yet found a plausible excuse to text him. 

She hoped Piper was right, and that Isabela would want to throw a party when Merrill came home. Rynne, Piper, Merrill and Isabela lived in a huge luxury condo that Isabela owned, and it was a great setting for parties. A party would be the perfect excuse to get Fenris into a more relaxed atmosphere. He always seemed so tense at work, which she supposed made sense what with the risk of getting swung at by drunken idiots at any moment. But Fenris’s brand of serious readiness seemed more… well, _serious_ than a bouncer job required. 

_Mysteries on top of mysteries,_ she thought. Fenris had been working at the Hanged Man for almost a month now, and most of the information she’d managed to learn about him was just confirmation of hints she’d gathered the first time they’d met: that he was from Tevinter, that red wine was his drink of choice, that he didn’t like karaoke or any other activity that put him in the spotlight, and that he did _not_ like being touched. 

But there were a couple other things she’d noticed that both intrigued her and made her feel worried for him. It seemed that Fenris trying to hide from someone. He used a flip phone, and when Rynne had teased him about it, he’d frowned and changed the subject. She’d also observed that he paid for everything in cash, which made her think he didn’t have a credit card and thus was trying to avoid being tracked down that way. 

Either way, Fenris and his whole situation piqued her interest more than anyone Rynne had met in recent years, but it also made her feel oddly protective of him. It was easy for Piper to suggest that she simply have a normal conversation with him, but she didn’t want to prod for details of his life if he was purposely trying to keep it hidden from someone. So she was stuck with her usual brand of raunchy flirtation, which Fenris didn’t seem to hate, but also didn’t seem to particularly enjoy either.

She picked up her phone and idly scrolled through her social media accounts, but her mind was still on Fenris. Finally she stood up and went to go bake some cookies. 

It was just a matter of finding some common ground with Fenris, that was all. And Rynne didn’t mind taking the time to figure out what that common ground might be.

************************

Fenris knocked on the door to Varric’s office. “Varric?” 

Varric glanced over the top of his reading glasses, then slung his legs off the desk. “Come on in, elf. Got your pay right here.” He placed his papers back on the desk, then bent over to unlock a drawer.

Fenris sidled cautiously into the crowded office. The walls were lined with shelves upon shelves of books and files, and there was a heaping pile of unopened mail on the corner of Varric’s desk. To Fenris’s eye, the office was cluttered almost to the point of being claustrophobic, but he got the sense that Varric could pull any given receipt out of the mess in less than a minute. 

He approached the desk, and Varric held out an envelope of cash to him. “Don’t get mugged on your way home.”

Fenris smirked. “That won’t be a problem. I will see you tonight.” He turned to leave. 

“Hey, elf. Hang on a minute.”

Fenris turned back, and Varric gestured for him to approach. “Have a seat. You want some coffee?” 

Fenris shook his head. “No, thank you.” He took a tentative step closer to the desk, then sat in one of the two chairs when Varric waved again for him to sit.

“Is something wrong with my work?” Fenris asked. 

Varric frowned. “What? Oh, no. You’re doing great.” He shot Fenris a lopsided smile. “I think you’re pulling in more customers, actually.”

Fenris frowned. “How so?”

Varric’s smile widened. “With your whole brooding, good-looking bad-boy thing. I’ve been hearing a lot of whispers from the patrons.”

Fenris shot the dwarf a chiding look. “Is there some other reason you asked me to stay, other than to taunt me?” 

“Heh. All right, all right, no need to be touchy.” Varric studied Fenris for a moment over the top of his glasses, and Fenris gazed back at him with a growing feeling of awkwardness.

Finally Varric leaned back in his chair and propped his feet on the desk again. “How are you settling into Kirkwall?”

Fenris shrugged and stuck his hands into his jacket pockets. “Just fine, thank you.”

“Have you seen much of the city yet?”

Fenris shook his head. “I have been busy.” 

Varric tilted his head. “Doing what?” 

Fenris raised a sardonic eyebrow. “Working at this fine establishment of yours, obviously.” 

“What else?”

Fenris frowned slightly. In truth, he hadn’t done much of anything since moving to Kirkwall. He’d been spending most of his spare time simply milling around in his spartan studio apartment in Lowtown. He didn’t know anyone in this city except for the people who worked at the Hanged Man, so it wasn’t like he had anyone to spend time with outside of his working hours. But he also wasn’t particularly inclined to make any friends. The more people knew him, the more likely it was that his whereabouts would get back to Danarius and his thugs. 

Danarius would come for him eventually. Fenris knew this. But he wasn’t prepared for the confrontation with his former boss just yet. Fenris had no weapons in Kirkwall except for a handful of knives and a handgun, and he would need a lot more than that to deal with the number of men Danarius was sure to throw at him.

Fenris’s only concern was making enough money to get some adequate weaponry on the black market, and he had to keep his head down until that time. When he was ready, he would go to Darktown and carefully put out the word to the right people that he was in Kirkwall. And when Danarius came, Fenris would use his finely honed skills one last time and take the Tevinter crime lord out, along with any of his cronies that he brought along.

To this end, it wasn’t Varric’s business what Fenris did (or didn’t do) when he wasn’t working. In fact, it was for Varric’s own good if he didn’t know. 

“Is there a point to this line of questioning?” Fenris asked. 

Varric shrugged affably. “Kirkwall’s an interesting city, that’s all. You should get out more. See some of it. I bet Hawke and Piper would be happy to show you around.”

 _Hawke_. Fenris’s belly did a funny little swoop at the mention of the dark-haired bartender. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of her. She was constantly flirting with him, in a very obvious and _very_ sexual way. But she seemed to flirt with everyone in this manner, including Varric, and Varric certainly didn’t take her seriously, so Fenris didn’t think he should be taking it seriously either.

But he’d noticed something about her flirting that he rather appreciated. Hawke was a very… touchy-feely person, it seemed. She greeted her friends with hugs and kisses, and she touched the hands and faces and arms of every stranger she flirted with. But after the one time she had touched his hand, on the very first night they’d met, she had never tried to touch him again. 

It was rather perceptive of her to notice his discomfort with being touched. The tattoos that spanned his body didn’t hurt anymore, not like they had during the first few weeks after he’d gotten them, but the memories of Danarius’s private physician rubbing lyrium salve into the raw and reddened marks still lingered. The resentment Fenris held about the tattoos on his skin was more of a scar than the tattoos themselves. 

He pushed the bitter thoughts away and turned his mind back to Hawke. Yes, it had been perceptive of her to notice that he didn’t like being touched. And considerate, too, to adjust her style of flirtation to make him comfortable. It was… endearing, almost. 

He shook his head slightly. It didn’t matter. Hawke certainly didn’t mean anything with her indiscriminate flirting. And it wasn’t like Fenris was in any position to reciprocate, anyway.

A fleeting thought crossed his mind - just a flash of an image, really, barely more than a passing fantasy: his lyrium-lined fingers stroking her bare and golden shoulder.

An uncomfortable flush of heat lit the tips of his ears, and he forced his attention back to Varric. “Have they lived here for long? Piper and Hawke?” he asked. 

“Just a couple of years,” Varric said. “Hawke came here… oh, about three years ago now, with her family. Piper came on her own around six months later. She’s from a Dalish clan based out in Ferelden somewhere, but you’ll have to ask her more about that.” 

Fenris nodded, then surreptitiously cleared his throat. “And… and Hawke… She lives with her family, you said?”

Varric shot him a knowing look: a very brief look, but enough of a look to make Fenris’s ears feel hotter still. Then he began to organize the papers on his desk. “Nah. She and Piper live with two other friends in a fancy place in Hightown. But Hawke sees her mom a lot. Spends a lot of time doing errands for her, chores around the house, stuff like that.”

Fenris frowned. “Her mother is ill?”

“Nope,” Varric said. He tidied his papers into a stack and didn’t elaborate. 

Fenris curiously narrowed his eyes, but he didn’t press. He knew only too well the value of privacy. 

He shifted slightly restlessly in his chair. “Well, if you haven’t anything else you wished to discuss…”

Varric looked up at him and smiled. “All right, I get it. Go on. I’ll see you tonight. But think about what I said,” he added as Fenris rose from his seat. “This is a good city. It’s got its gritty parts, sure, but it’s an interesting place. Lots of interesting people. You should get to know it if you’re going to be living here for a while.” 

Fenris nodded once. “I will… consider it. Thank you.” He turned away and left the office. 

The springtime sun was bright and warm when he stepped out of the Hanged Man, but he pulled up his sweatshirt hood and shoved his hands into his pockets nonetheless. As he made his way back to his apartment, he mulled over what Varric had said. 

He knew Varric was just trying to be helpful. The clever dwarf seemed to have an avuncular outlook towards all of his employees, and his fatherly feelings seemed to extend to Fenris as well. And Fenris _was_ grateful; Varric had hired him despite knowing next to nothing of Fenris’s employment history or his past, and had also unquestioningly agreed to pay him under the table, despite the undeniably shady implications of such a request.

But Varric’s intentions and goodwill didn’t matter, not really. Fenris had good reasons for keeping to himself. He couldn’t build any attachments, not when he knew he would eventually leave this city with a pile of bodies in his wake. 

His unruly mind conjured another memory: Hawke’s laughing face as she handed him a glass of red wine across the bar, wine that matched the crimson of her lips. 

He pushed the thought away. _Stop,_ he sternly told himself. There was absolutely no point. He was here to hide and to make some cash, that was all. 

There was no place in his cursed life for anything - or anyone - else. 

******************

“Hello, handsome! The usual?”

Fenris nodded at Hawke. “Yes, thank you,” he said. He took a seat at the bar as he usually did during his break and waited silently as Hawke filled two steins of beer while simultaneously making change for a twenty-dollar bill.

She filled another pint glass with water and added a slice of lime, then slid the glass to him. “Any interesting stories tonight yet?”

Fenris smirked faintly. She always asked him this during his breaks. At first he had simply said no; being a bouncer was a tiresome job, and Fenris didn’t find anything particularly compelling about turning drunken frat boys and businessmen away or throwing them out of the bar altogether when things got rowdy. 

But one night, Fenris had given into her lighthearted persistence and told her about the gold-handled kitchen knife that some idiot from Val Royeaux had pulled on him at the door. Hawke had laughed so hard that Fenris didn’t have it in him to deny her the stupid little stories. 

He lifted the glass of water to his lips. “I turned away some fool who had left his ID at work. He said his sister was inside and that she could vouch for his age.” He took a small sip of water. “Do you suppose I should have given him the benefit of the doubt?”

Hawke’s face lit up. “I don’t suppose he had short brown hair and a face like a baby’s smacked bottom?”

Fenris choked in surprise at this extremely colourful description. “What?” he spluttered.

Hawke grinned at him. “He almost sounds like my brother Carver. Now _that_ would be hilarious if you’d turned him away.”

Fenris wiped his mouth and stared at her. “Your…? Should I let him in next time so you can confirm?”

“Oh, absolutely not,” Hawke chuckled. “If he forgets his ID at the police station, it’s his own fault. I don’t know how Aveline copes with him, he’s such an absent-minded berk.” She grinned impishly, then slipped away to help a few more patrons.

A jolt of apprehension dampened Fenris’s amusement. He waited until she’d mixed a few cocktails and poured a couple of shots, then drifted back over to him with a smile. 

“Your brother is a police officer?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. She leaned her elbows on the bar and smirked ruefully. “Ironic, really, given… ah, never mind.” 

Fenris frowned. That was a cryptic comment to make. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask her to elaborate, but he also didn’t want to pry; he wouldn’t like it if she pried into his past, after all. But it was good to know Hawke had a family member in the police force. All the more reason to avoid getting close to her.

He sipped his water in silence as Hawke scooped some tips off the bar, then briskly wiped it down. “What about you?” she asked. “Do you have any ridiculous siblings?” 

Fenris glanced at her. Her face was friendly and casual, and it was a completely innocuous question to ask. Or it would be, at least, for any normal person. 

He sipped his water as he stalled for time. Then, for some reason, he decided to answer her question. “A sister,” he said tersely. “She’s dead.” 

Hawke stopped wiping the bar and looked up at him with wide eyes. “Oh. Shit. I’m… I’m sorry, Fenris.” 

He shrugged and glanced idly around the bar. “It’s all right,” he said. It wasn’t, really, and it never would be. But there was no other socially acceptable response when people expressed their sympathy. 

“No it’s not,” Hawke said. 

Fenris looked up at her in surprise. Her usually cheerful face was serious. 

“It sucks, having a family member die,” she said. “My dad is dead, and it sucks. So… yeah.” She gave nervous little laugh and continued wiping the bar. “It’s not the same as your sister dying, I’m not trying to say that, but I just… I feel you, I guess. That’s all I mean to say.” 

Fenris didn’t reply. He stared at her in silence until she shot him an uncertain little smile, then she drifted away along the bar and kept on working. 

He watched as her smile appeared again, and he watched as she flirted with the customers and laughed with Piper and filled people’s orders. He thought about the seriousness of her expression, and the hint of melancholy he’d seen there - the first hint of it that he’d yet seen on her pretty face. 

He finished his water and checked his watch; his break was over, and he had to return to the door to take over from Keran. He stood from the bar stool and walked along the length of the bar until he was standing in front of Hawke again. 

She smiled as he handed her his empty water glass. “Finished? I’ll have your wine ready at the end of the -”

“Hawke,” he interrupted. “Thank you.” 

She stopped mid-sentence and looked him in the eye without speaking, and Fenris’s breath caught in his throat.

Then her smile softened, and she shrugged casually. “Hey, no problem. Now go bring me some more funny stories, all right? Make yourself useful for once.” She winked, then wafted away to unpack the dishwasher. 

Fenris watched the swaying of her hips as she walked away, then stepped away from the bar and returned to the door. He nodded brusquely at Keran, then waved imperiously for the next wave of patrons to come forward and show their IDs. 

_Don’t,_ he told himself. _You cannot do this. You cannot come to like her._ He had fled to Kirkwall to keep his head down and hide until the time for his revenge was ripe. There was no place in his life for any kind of attachments. Not to this place, and not to any of these people. 

Especially not to the shameless, flirtatious, beautiful human woman who was working behind the bar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A wild Fenris POV has appeared! The rest of this fic will switch between Rynne and Fenris's POVs. 
> 
> The phrase "a face like a baby's smacked bottom" is from the movie _Bride & Prejudice_. I have always thought it is a hysterical turn of phrase so I had to include it here. 
> 
> Anyway, updates for this fic might be more frequent than I had originally thought because I'm officially obsessed with this AU. THANKS A LOT, SCOUTY. xoxo


	3. Slow Hands

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: A brief incident of assault outside the Hanged Man.

Five weeks after Fenris started working at the Hanged Man, Rynne learned something about Fenris that truly surprised her: he had a great singing voice.

The discovery was a completely serendipitous one. It was a Friday, and she’d come to the Hanged Man a few hours early to unpack the biweekly shipment of wines from Orlais, as was her and Piper’s usual routine. But Pipes was out of town on a weekend trip with Cullen - a very rare treat, as Cullen’s litigator career kept him extremely busy. On the rare nights that Cullen made it to their condo for the night, he was usually fast asleep before he and Piper got halfway through whatever movie they had chosen to watch that night.

In any case, Rynne was flying solo today with the usual unpacking of the wines. Or so she’d thought, until she approached the stockroom and heard someone moving around inside and singing in a very quiet voice. 

A deep, growly baritone voice that instantly set butterflies alight in Rynne’s belly. 

_Oh sweet fucking Andraste,_ she thought. She tiptoed closer to the stockroom, then peeked around the corner. 

Sure enough, Fenris was in the stockroom moving the heavy crates of wine around - and making it look easy, Rynne might add. And he was singing to himself, a charming combination of half-humming and half-singing that clearly indicated that he thought he was entirely alone. 

His quiet voice was perfectly in tune, and Rynne easily recognized the song he was singing: it was one that had been playing toward the end of their shift last night, when the last few patrons were trickling out of the pub. 

She listened with shameless appreciation as Fenris opened a crate and began unpacking the bottles of wine while singing the chorus to himself.

_Slow hands, like sweat drippin’ down our dirty laundry_  
_No chance that I'm leaving here without you on me_  
_I know, yeah I already know that there ain't no stoppin'_  
_Your plans and those slow hands_

Rynne swallowed hard and absent-mindedly rubbed the scarlet kerchief at her throat. _Be still, my beating vagina,_ she thought. As if she wasn’t already ridiculously attracted to him, now she was stuck with a new fantasy of her hands sliding slowly across Fenris’s sweat-laced body while he sang to her in that dreamy fucking voice… 

But it was more than just his voice and the words they held. And the buzzing in her chest was more than just lust. Hearing him contentedly singing like this, and seeing how relaxed he looked - he wasn’t even frowning! - it was confirmation that her suspicions were correct: there was far more to this mysterious broody elf than met the eye. Under that taciturn exterior of his, there was a man who was happy to sing to himself while unpacking crates in the stockroom of a pub. 

Her heart was pounding. This was stupid. She was being stupid. She barely knew him. The only additional fact she now knew was that he had a singing voice that would make Andraste weep with jealousy. This was not a good reason to be feeling so soppy. 

She took a deep breath, then folded her arms and leaned casually against the doorjamb. “You liar,” she accused. “You said you didn’t sing.”

He jumped, then spun around and glared at her. “Hawke! What - why are you here?” he demanded.

Maker’s balls, his pointed ears were absolutely flaming red. If that wasn’t the cutest fucking thing Rynne had ever seen, she didn’t know what was. She grinned at him. “I’m here to unpack the shipment from Orlais,” she said. “But it seems that you’re doing my job for me already.”

Fenris shoved one hand in his pocket and ran his other hand through his hair. “I… Varric asked me to come in and help since Piper is away. He failed to mention that you would be here early.” 

“I didn’t tell him I was coming in early,” she replied. “I’m a renegade like that.” 

He raised one eyebrow. “A renegade with a work ethic?”

She shrugged cheerfully. “It’s not entirely outside the realm of possibility. Now why don’t you step aside and let me show you how it’s done?” 

Fenris eyed her for a moment, then stepped away from the half-empty crate of wine bottles and waved graciously towards it. “Please. Be my guest.”

She smirked at how polite he always was, then began swiftly unpacking the bottles and sliding them into their slots in the wine rack against the wall. “Me and Pipes organize the wines by region and then by popularity, so it’s not very intuitive. You’re lucky I’m here,” she said cheekily. “Otherwise you might have made mistakes. And then I’d have to punish you for being a bad boy and messing up our system.” She slid a lingering look along the length of his body. 

Fenris tilted her a chiding look, then folded his arms and leaned against the nearest shelf. “Don’t let me be a hindrance to your so-called system, then. Is there something else I can do to assist?” 

“Nope,” she chirped. “I can unpack the crates on my own. You can watch.” She bent over the crate in a slow and purposeful manner, then tossed him a provocative look over her shoulder. 

He shook his head and lifted his eyes to the ceiling. “You are truly unbelievable. There’s not a single reserved bone in your body, is there?”

She grinned broadly at his unintentional double-entendre, and he groaned and rubbed his face. “Hawke,” he scolded.

She laughed loudly. “You said it, not me!” Ah, that admonishing tone and that frowning face of his… She truly couldn’t decide if she preferred his scowl or his smile. 

“You know that is not what I meant,” he said. “If I meant it, I would say so in a more purposeful way.”

Rynne gaped at him, and a shiver of excitement rippled down her spine. Was he… was he flirting with her?

His expression was completely inscrutable. Maybe she was just imagining the rising tension in this crowded room. Feeling giddy nevertheless, she grinned at him. “Is that so?” she teased. “And how would you put it if you did mean it?” 

He stared at her in silence, and Rynne definitely was _not_ imagining it when his gaze flicked momentarily to her lips. Then he abruptly unfolded his arms and moved toward the door. “If you are fine on your own, then I should -”

“No,” she said hastily. “Stay! Keep me company. I’ll behave, I promise.” 

He stopped at the door and shot her a wry glance. “Keep you company? To what end? You said you don’t need my help.” 

“I don’t,” she insisted. She turned toward the stack of bottle-filled crates near the back entrance of the stockroom and began to lift a crate down to the floor. 

Maker, it was fucking heavy. She usually had Piper to help her with this. _No problem, no problem,_ she told herself as she placed the crate on the floor with as much cool as she could muster. 

She released her breath and turned back to the stack of crates, then hesitated. She would have to shift about five more crates in the course of this unpacking. 

“Need a hand?” Fenris drawled. 

Rynne glanced at him, then shot him a sickly smile. “Umm… maybe.” 

He rubbed his mouth - hiding a smile, maybe? She hoped he was hiding a smile - then sidled slowly back into the room. “And I suppose you have too much pride to actually ask for my assistance.” 

“Hah!” she laughed. “Me, pride? You don’t know me very well. I have no pride whatsoever.” She batted her eyelashes at him as he approached. “Please, O Strong and Handsome Bouncer, help me move these crates.” 

He raised one eyebrow at her. “I shall ignore your tone and take your request in the nature it was intended,” he said, then began shifting the crates of wine with so little effort that it was nearly offensive. 

Rynne bit her lip to hide the besotted grin that was threatening to break across her face. She turned back to the crate she’d moved to the floor, then opened it and began unpacking the wine. 

She and Fenris worked in silence for a few minutes. Then, unable to resist, she shot him a cheeky look over her shoulder. “You can keep singing if you like. Don’t let my presence stop you.”

He scowled, and the tips of his ears began to pinken. “Hawke,” he said warningly. 

Maker’s fucking balls, she could get used to hearing him say her name in that tone of voice. Maybe while doing a little striptease for him on that pole Isabela had set up in the upstairs living room… 

She laughed at the fanciful thought and at Fenris’s tone of voice, and at this entire situation: the two of them together in this crowded stockroom and the little pout on Fenris’s lips, and how she wanted him so badly that it was almost making her dizzy. She laughed and laughed, and when a tiny smirk lifted the corner of his lips, it only made her laugh harder still. 

He shook his head and began opening a crate. “You’re an idiot.”

She wiped a tear of mirth from the corner of her eyes. “Only for you, Fenris,” she said fondly. “Only for you.”

He scoffed as he started unpacking the crate, and Rynne grinned to herself. Her words were an exaggeration of the truth, but not by much. She certainly acted like an idiot sometimes, and she didn’t need anyone’s help to do so. 

But to make Fenris smile? Rynne would do any number of idiotic things for that.

***************************

Fenris sipped his water and silently watched the crowd. The Hanged Man was busier than usual tonight, and Hawke had barely had time to slip him his usual breaktime glass of water with lime before returning to the crowd of customers who were clamouring for her attention. 

It was rather unfortunate that Piper was away. Hawke and Piper worked together as a seamless team, moving around each other behind the bar as though they could read each other’s thoughts and cracking jokes together in a way that made Fenris think of some kind of improvised stand-up routine. One of Varric’s back-up bartenders was standing in for the weekend, a woman named Nora, and competent though she seemed to be, she certainly didn’t have Piper’s efficiency.

Fenris sipped his water again and looked boredly around the bar. A trio of girls was singing ‘Despacito’ rather poorly on the karaoke stage, but it didn’t seem to bother the crowd, who were singing along with varying degrees of musical talent. The TVs in the corners were variously showing the corresponding music video and the football game, and sudden bursts of cheering and table-thumping from the Kirkwall Idols fans would break through the music on occasion. 

Hawke, meanwhile, was working the bar as efficiently as usual. She winked at an Idols fan as she handed him a bottle of beer, but when she turned away, she blew out a tired breath and ran a hand through her pixie-short hair. Then she looked up and met Fenris’s gaze. 

“You all right there on your own?” she yelled over the noise.

Fenris waved a dismissive hand. “I’m fine,” he yelled back. 

She shot him a brilliant smile, then turned back to the clamouring crowd of customers, and Fenris returned his attention to the seething mass of humanity in the bar. 

Eventually, though, his gaze drifted back to Hawke, and he found himself watching her instead. She was a veritable machine behind the bar: wiping spills while pouring drinks, making change and chit-chat to put a smile on a grumpy customer’s face, pinching a pretty girl’s cheek while handing her friend a perfectly-mixed martini. She was charming and swift, and she made her job look effortless, but Fenris couldn’t help but notice the sheen of sweat on her nose. And in the little dip at the crux of her collarbones. And in the little hollow at the front of her camisole… 

He tore his eyes away and looked over the fulminating crowd, but his attention was soon drawn back to Hawke again as she dealt with one particular patron - a burly blond male who looked to be in his 30s, wearing an Idols jersey and who was trying very hard to retain Hawke’s attention as she flitted along the length of the bar.

Fenris frowned. The man had his pint in hand, so he wasn’t waiting for service. But it didn’t stop him from trying with increasing persistence to get Hawke’s attention as she looked after the multitude of other customers who were waiting for drinks. 

And then the man reached across the bar and grabbed Hawke’s wrist. 

Fenris was instantly on his feet and moving toward her. To his surprise, however, Hawke dealt with the situation before Fenris reached the man’s side. 

She twisted her arm, forcing the blond man’s chest down toward the bar, and by the time Fenris was standing across from her, she was gripping the man’s wrist with one hand and using her now-freed hand to hold him down.

“Pretend this is like the zoo, my friend,” she said to her assailant. “You can look, but you can’t touch.” She released him, then winked at Fenris. “Would you mind?”

“Gladly,” he growled, and he grabbed the man by his arm and hauled him away from the bar.

“Get your hands off me,” the blond man slurred as they approached the door. “‘Snot my fault, that bitch is a tease - I come here every week, givin’ her big tips and she never -”

“ _Vishante kaffas,_ ” Fenris snarled. He shoved the man out onto the street. “Never set foot near this place again.” 

The blond man stumbled to find his balance and clenched his fists, then seemed to think twice as he took in the look on Fenris’s face. He took a step back and sneered. “Fuckin’ knife-eared scum,” he spat, then turned and stumbled away.

Fenris glared at the burly blond’s retreating back, then turned to Keran. “If he comes here again-” 

“Say no more,” Keran said as he waved another group of people into the bar.

Fenris ignored the wide-eyed stares of the people waiting in line and strode back into the Hanged Man. Hawke’s eyebrows rose as he approached the bar. “You’re not taking over for Keran?” she asked. 

“No,” he said. He planted himself with his back to the bar and folded his arms. “We’ve traded duties for the night.” No matter that he hadn’t discussed the switch with Keran; Keran was a clever lad, he would figure it out. 

Fenris scowled at the boisterous occupants of the pub. A moment later, Hawke’s voice floated into his ear. “Aw, Fenris. Are you feeling protective of me? I can look after myself, you know. I’m not the delicate flower that I seem to be.” She was leaning her elbows on the bar, and from the corner of his eye he could see her mischievous little smile. 

He pursed his lips. “I’m not suggesting that you are. I am simply doing my job.”

She laughed lightly. “Well, if by ‘doing your job’, you mean scaring the customers away from the bar, then yes, you’re doing a fantastic job.”

He glanced around and realized she was right; the area immediately surrounding him was oddly clear of people, and all the patrons had drifted off to Nora’s half of the bar. 

Hawke leaned further across the bar. “It’s all right,” she said in a softer tone. “Go back outside. Keran looks after things just fine in here.” 

He clenched his jaw, then sighed. “All right,” he grunted, and he pushed away from the bar and returned to the door. 

Keran shot him a worried look as he took his place at the door. “Everything okay in there?” he asked. 

Fenris muttered an affirmative, then tried to soften his scowl as he glanced at the milling line of would-be patrons waiting outside the Hanged Man. In theory, Hawke was right; she should be able to look after herself reasonably well, since all of Varric’s barstaff and waitstaff were required to receive yearly self-defense training. And she had dealt with that drunken asshole adequately enough. 

But Fenris knew only too well how the suddenness of an attack could make a person’s training go straight out the window. It had once been his job to _be_ that sudden attack, after all. It was stunning how easily a stealth strike with a knife could throw the most hardened-looking gunsman into a blind-firing panic, and Fenris had taken advantage of that panic response more times than he could count. 

Much later that night, after the final patrons had been ejected and the cash had been counted, Fenris paused on his way out while Hawke and Nora were finishing up the final night-time cleaning behind the bar. “Can I assist with anything?” he asked.

Hawke smiled up at him as she wiped down the beer taps. “Nope, we’re good. We’ll be finished here in a few minutes.” She jerked her head at the door. “Head on home, handsome. See you tomorrow.” 

He chewed the inside of his cheek for a moment, then nodded. “Goodnight,” he said, then reluctantly turned away and walked toward the exit. 

He wasn’t sure why he was feeling so apprehensive about leaving the Hanged Man. This wasn’t the first time he’d seen one of the waitstaff attacked by a customer, unfortunately; one of the elven waitresses had been grabbed by a drunken lout just three nights ago, and she’d also dealt with him quite effectively before Keran had thrown him out. But for some reason that Fenris just couldn’t shake, he didn’t feel good about leaving Hawke in the Hanged Man with only Nora for company.

He was halfway home by the time he realized he didn’t have his housekeys in his pocket. “ _Venhedis_ ,” he muttered. This almost never happened to him. He was far too careful to misplace things, so when he did, it was almost impossible to track them down. Of course the item he lost had to be the keys to his blasted apartment. 

There was nothing for it but to go back to the Hanged Man. As it turned out, Fenris was extremely glad that he had. 

He heard the sound of a scuffle as he approached the pub. It was coming from the alley around the side of the pub, and Fenris frowned and listened hard as he drew close. 

He recognized the male voice instantly: that blond asshole from earlier that night. “... think you can humiliate me like that, you fucking bitch?” he snarled. “Take my money like that and just… give me nothing in return?”

“You do realize the Hanged Man is a pub, right? If you give a bartender money, you get a drink in return. If you were looking for the Blooming Rose, you’re in the wrong place.”

Fenris’s heart rate ratcheted up at the sound of Hawke’s voice. She was cheeky as always, but something in her voice sounded strained, as though she was fighting to catch her breath - 

A female gasp of pain reached Fenris’s ears, and a pulsing wave of rage roared through his chest. With a huge effort of will, he forced himself to slip silently into the shadows in the alley. 

The blond man was pressing Hawke face-first against the wall, and her arm was trapped behind her back. “Fucking talk back to me, will you?” the man yelled. “I’ll teach you -”

Hawke tried to buck her head back and hit the man in the face. He snarled as he moved his head away, and Fenris took advantage of his distraction to punch him hard in the right flank. 

The man grunted and instantly released Hawke, and Fenris grabbed him by his collar and threw him to the ground. 

Hawke slumped against the wall. “Fenris? Maker’s balls, I’m - what are you -” 

He knelt over her assailant’s supine body, then punched him hard in the mouth. 

The blond man grunted with pain. Fenris punched him once more for good measure, then pulled the knife from his ankle sheath and held it to the man’s throat. 

“Maker’s balls!” Hawke gasped. 

He ignored her. “I told you not to return to this place,” he growled at the blond. “Did I not say that?”

The man groaned and feebly tried to twist away, but Fenris pressed the blade more firmly to his throat. “What would you have done if I had not shown up? Tell me that.” 

“Fenris, stop,” Hawke begged. 

He barely heard her. The rage was pulsing in his ears and behind his eyes, goading him on as he stared at the trickle of blood that dribbled from the man’s mouth. 

He leaned in close to the half-conscious man’s face. “Men like you carry only one weapon,” he hissed. “Shall I cut it off for you?”

“Fenris, stop it!” Hawke snapped. She crouched beside him. “He’s not worth it.”

“He doesn’t deserve your mercy,” he snarled at her. “Don’t be so naive as to tell me you don’t think he would -”

“I don’t give a fuck about _him_ ,” Hawke said. She lowered her voice. “I’m thinking of you,” she muttered. “If you’re trying to lay low, you - I don’t want - you can’t injure him any more than this. It goes beyond self-defense. Don’t give him a reason to go to the police.” 

Fenris curled his lip, and Hawke shifted a little closer to him. “Come on,” she said. “Let this fucker go. He’s learned his lesson.” She shot the blond man a dismissive glance. “Haven’t you?”

He whimpered and nodded faintly, and Hawke looked at Fenris again. “See? He’s learned his lesson like the thickheaded dumbass that he is. Let him stumble his way home before he starts pissing blood outside the pub.” 

Fenris growled low in his throat, then finally rose to his feet. Hawke rose with him and made her way toward the mouth of the alley. 

Fenris glanced at her to make sure she was a safe distance away, then glared down at her assailant. “If you ever approach her again, I will kill you,” he said quietly. “Is that understood?”

The man whimpered and nodded, and Fenris finally turned on his heel and left the alley. Hawke met his eye as he emerged, and he nodded silently and followed her back into the Hanged Man. 

She made her way unsteadily toward the bar, and Fenris swiftly took down a bar stool so she could have a seat, then took down a second one for himself.

She seated herself slowly, then let out a slow breath. “Well, that was fun,” she said, and she smiled at him. 

Her hands were trembling. Fenris swallowed the lump in his throat and rested his hand on the bar a few inches from hers. “Are you hurt?” he asked. 

She shrugged and gingerly touched her right cheekbone. “Hit my face on the wall a bit, but it’s okay. It’ll make a charming bruise, I’m sure. I can tell everyone I walked into a door. I’ve always wanted to use that line.” She chuckled and glanced down, and her eyes widened. “Shit, your hand.” 

Fenris looked at his knuckles. They were bloodied and scraped from the blond man’s teeth, and now that his adrenaline was wearing off, they were starting to ache.

He waved his hand dismissively and slid off of the stool. “It’s nothing. You should ice your face. Let me -”

“Oh come on, that’s got to hurt,” she said. Before Fenris could stop her, she hopped off of her stool and hurried around to the back of the bar. “Movies always make it look like punching someone in the face is so badass,” she said. “But it hurts you as much as it does the other guy, right?” She gathered some ice into a small plastic baggie and handed it to him. 

He refused to take it. “Use that for yourself,” he ordered. 

She tilted him a chiding look, then prepared a second baggie of ice. “There,” she said. “One for me, one for you. Now go on, ice your hand. I’ll find the first-aid kit.” 

Fenris frowned. “Hawke, there is no need. It is a superficial injury, it will heal on its own.” 

“Those scratches look pretty deep,” she retorted. “You should bandage them up. Make sure they don’t get infected. You don’t know what kind of disgusting germs were in that asshole’s saliva.” She pulled out the first aid kit and opened it, then slumped in exasperation. “Fucking Nora.”

Fenris raised an eyebrow. “What is it?” He seated himself again and placed the ice on his knuckles. 

Hawke pursed her lips and shook her head. “She used up all the bloody gauze and didn’t replace it.” She _tsk_ ed and pulled some peroxide and cotton balls from the kit. “She’s an all right bartender, you know, but her attention to detail leaves a lot to be desired.” She pushed the kit aside and gestured at his hand. “Do you mind if I…?” 

Fenris hesitated. His gaze flicked between the cotton and the peroxide and her expectant face. 

Finally he moved the ice off of his hand and slid his hand across the bar towards her. 

The corner of her lips quirked in a tiny smile. She moistened a cotton ball with some water, then dabbed the blood on his knuckles very gently. 

Fenris watched her ministrations. She was still being so careful to not directly touch his skin. They were both silent as she wiped the blood away. 

She moistened a fresh cotton ball with peroxide. “So that was kind of intense,” she said. “Your whole, ‘punch a guy in the kidney and pull a knife on him’ thing. Do you do that a lot?”

His eyes flicked to her face. Her gaze was on his hand, and her voice was casual and calm. 

She dabbed his knuckles with the peroxide. He ignored the sting and considered ignoring her question, but for some reason, for the first time since he’d left Tevinter almost three years ago, he actually felt like talking about this. 

He took a deep breath. “Not in a long time, no.”

She raised one eyebrow as she continued to clean his knuckles. “So you used to do that a lot, then? Are kidney shots a common pastime in Tevinter? A way you say ‘hello’, perhaps?”

He smirked at her irreverent tone. Somehow it was making him feel more comfortable about the topic at hand. “Depending on the circles you run in, you could say that.” 

She lifted her eyes to his face, and they studied each other in silence for a moment. Then she smiled slowly at him. “You are such a dark horse. I knew you had an interesting story.” 

He dropped his eyes back to his hand and didn’t reply. A moment later, she continued wiping his cuts. 

Finally he spoke again. “I worked for a criminal organization in Tevinter,” he said quietly. “I was an enforcer.” 

Her hands went still. “Oh. Fuck,” she breathed.

Fenris refused to look at her face. He kept his eyes on his hand as he continued to speak. “I worked in that capacity for a long time. I tried to quit, and they… stopped me. Then I managed to escape. I came here to…” He trailed off. It would be easy to say he’d come to Kirkwall to start a new life, but it wasn’t entirely true, and for some reason that he wasn’t fully certain of, he didn’t want to lie to Hawke.

“To work as a bouncer in an amazing and awesome karaoke bar?” she supplied. She pressed a clean cotton ball to one of his cuts, then used a piece of medical tape to fix it in place. 

Her tone was surprisingly blasé, and her fingers were sure and careful on his knuckles. He managed a weak chuckle. “Yes, I suppose.”

She was quiet until she’d finished her impromptu cotton-and-tape bandages on each of his cuts. Then she leaned her elbows on the bar and looked him in the eye. “I’m glad you got away,” she said seriously. “That sounds like a shit life. Definitely one worth leaving behind.”

He swallowed hard. “Yes,” he whispered. A ‘shit life’ was the understatement of the century, and he had only told Hawke the bare bones of it. 

He hadn’t mentioned that he was not only an enforcer, but Danarius’s finest assassin. He hadn’t mentioned that both Varania and his mother were dead, killed because he had failed in one of his ambushes on a rival gang. He’d said nothing of the beating he’d suffered that had resulted in a prolonged recuperation and the loss of his memories of that fateful day. He hadn’t told her that he’d willingly returned to Danarius’s gang after his family’s deaths, and that for a time, he’d become even more single-mindedly vicious in his murderous duties. 

He hadn’t mentioned the lyrium. The blasted, fucking, Maker-forsaken lyrium. 

Worst of all, he hadn’t mentioned that he hadn’t left that life behind, not really. He hadn’t told her that he was simply biding his time until he had the necessary gear to exact his revenge on Danarius and his ilk. 

He lifted his eyes to her face. She was frowning at his knuckles critically, and he watched with a strange ache in his chest as she reached up to her throat and untied the crimson kerchief around her neck. 

“Cotton balls will fall off while you’re walking home,” she muttered, almost as though she was talking to herself. She reached down and lifted his palm. 

Fenris tensed at the touch of her skin, but he couldn’t pull away. Her fingers were cold but gentle as she carefully tied her kerchief around his hand. 

She tucked the ends of the kerchief against his palm, then planted her fists on her hips and nodded in satisfaction. “There. That should hold you until you get home. Then you can bandage yourself up properly and get rid of the manky scarf.” She gave him a shrewd look. “You do have bandages at home, I hope?”

“How did you know I was… laying low?” he asked. 

She raised her eyebrows and dropped her hands to her sides. “Oh. Well, you’re just shifty, that’s all. You have a flip phone. Only criminals use flip phones. And you pay for everything in cash. And you’re all quiet and broody and all that.”

He scowled and pulled his hand away. “Would I be less ‘shifty’ if I was loud and obnoxious?” he said sulkily.

She laughed heartily. “Probably. But I like you just fine with your broody thing. Besides, Pipes and I are already filling the loud-and-obnoxious role here. There’s no room for another loudmouthed idiot at this pub.”

He narrowed his eyes. She liked him? She didn’t mean…?

No. Of course she didn’t mean it that way, not after what he’d just told her. At least Fenris hoped she didn’t mean it that way. It would only be to her detriment if she did. Furthermore, she didn’t sound like she was flirting. This was not her flirting tone of voice. And yet… 

Oblivious to his suddenly roiling thoughts, Hawke tilted her head. “Can I ask you something?”

“All right,” he said distractedly.

“The tattoos,” she said. “Are they gang-related?”

He glanced briefly at his tattooed palms, then closed them into fists. “Yes.”

Hawke was quiet for a moment. “Do all of your former gang’s people have tattoos?”

He lifted his eyes to her face. “Yes. But not… not like this.” 

She nodded and twisted her lips, then rubbed her nose restlessly, and Fenris felt a sudden twinge of amusement. He didn’t know Hawke that well, but he knew her well enough, and he knew exactly what she was thinking.

She wanted to know if the tattoos covered his entire body. 

It was suddenly on the tip of his tongue to tell her, and he almost did. _Almost_. But he couldn’t go there. If he told her that the tattoos spanned his body from his chin to his toes, it would invite more questions and more undeniable innuendo, and he couldn’t… it wasn’t… 

An unbidden fantasy leapt into his mind: Hawke’s slender fingers sliding along his tattooed chest, down his tattooed abs, curling around his tattooed thighs -

He shoved the thought aside and slid off of his bar stool. “I will walk you home.” 

Her eyes widened, and he half-expected her to argue. Then she blew out a soft breath and smiled wryly at him. “I was hoping you would offer. Andraste’s dimpled ass, I really have no pride at all.” 

“It is not a matter of pride,” he said. “It’s a matter of safety.” He gestured for her to join him.

She walked around the bar until she was beside him, but before she could head for the exit, Fenris held out a baggie of ice. “Here. For your cheek.”

She took the ice and looked up at him “Thank you,” she said. 

He dismissively waved his hand and nodded toward the exit, but Hawke held up a hand. “No, I mean it. I don’t think I actually thanked you for… for helping me with that fucking asshole. I… fuck’s sake, if you hadn’t come back, I…” She shivered. “Why _did_ you come back, anyway?”

Suddenly he remembered. “ _Kaffas_. I - my keys. I must have left them here somewhere…” 

“Oh! We found a set when we were cleaning up.” She hurried behind the bar again and rifled around for a moment, then held up a plain black leather keychain. “Are these yours?”

He wilted in relief. “Yes. Thank you.” 

She tossed him the keys and made her way back to his side. “Oh please, it’s the very least I… Honestly, Fenris, I can’t thank you enough.”

He shrugged and tucked his hands into his pockets. “Your thanks are unnecessary.”

She shook her head as they headed for the door. “No, they’re not. Not everyone would have done what you did.”

“I certainly hope not,” Fenris muttered. Pulling his knife and making that castration threat, genuine though it had been, was probably not his wisest move. 

Hawke shot him a faintly annoyed look. “I mean it. You did a good thing. Whatever you did when you were in Tevinter, it didn’t spoil you, if that’s what you’re thinking.” She tilted her chin up with a hint of belligerence. “ _I_ think you’re a good guy, for what it’s worth.” 

Fenris studied her fierce and pretty face. She had no idea of the things he’d done, the people he’d maimed and murdered without a second thought… 

He brushed the ugly memories aside. He was no longer Danarius’s thrall, and he never would be again. The only people he would murder now were the ones who deserved to die. 

“Come, Hawke. We should move on.” He pushed open the door to the Hanged Man and waited for her to pass, then closed the door behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes:  
> \- The song Fenris is singing in the beginning is [’Slow Hands’ by Niall Horan.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBmNcLBaPUE)  
> \- “Be still, my beating vagina” is from the movie _Mamma Mia, Here We Go Again_. It’s a favourite line and I couldn’t resist.  
> \- PSA that [Fenris’s voice actor, Gideon Emery, sings jazz??](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qa1p54qKJ8I) And his voice is smooth af? He doesn’t sing with that lovely Fenris growl, unfortunately, but we can all just pretend.  
> \- I don’t know how large amounts of wine bottles are shipped to restaurants. A cursory Google search wouldn’t give me the answer I wanted. I hope it’s ok that I had them being shipped in crates? ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ And now that I think about it, I don’t know if restaurateurs/bar staff unpack the wine from the crates when it arrives. Maybe it stays in the crates. ~~Maybe I should shut up now and stop revealing my ignorance la la la la~~
> 
> I am [Pikapeppa on Tumblr,](https://pikapeppa.tumblr.com/) if anyone wants to come scream Fenhawke at me! I also encourage ya'll to follow [Schoute,](http://schoute.tumblr.com/) who is drawing an [AMAZING COMIC of this fic](http://schoute.tumblr.com/post/182870485764/damned-spot-page-1), and who makes beautiful Piper/Cullen art that is just so lovely. xoxo


	4. Lyrium

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Brief mention of the assault that occurred in the last chapter. And for some… moral quandaries? Sorry I can’t be more specific - no spoils.
> 
> In preparation for this chapter: I would like to beg all readers to imagine Rynne, Piper, Isabela and Merrill’s home as [Commander Shepard’s apartment](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQMaZn-y1ks) in Mass Effect 3’s Citadel DLC, but with enough master bedrooms for all the girls and a huge balcony overlooking Kirkwall.

Piper solicitously wrapped a blanket around Rynne’s shoulders. “So let me get this straight,” she said. “He saves you from a butthurt asshole in the alley. You patch him up. He walks you home. And not even a goodnight kiss?”

She jumped up from the couch and moved toward the kitchen, and Rynne let out a quick laugh. “Trust me, Pipes, it wasn’t… The mood was _not_ right for a kiss.” 

It was Monday afternoon, and Piper had gotten home late last night from her weekend getaway. Rynne had just finished an abridged telling of the Friday night debacle - leaving out all the information about Fenris’s past, of course.

Rynne wasn’t being entirely truthful when she said the mood hadn’t been right for a kiss. During the whole walk home, she’d been forced to suppress the urge to take shelter in the steady strength of Fenris’s arms. She was a big fan of physical comfort, hugs and hand-holding and the like, and Fenris’s timely rescue - combined with the fact that she was already infatuated with him - made her want to cling to him like a baby lemur. 

But she was trying to respect his aversion to touch. Besides, the walk home had been… oddly intense. Fenris had seemed deep in thought, and Rynne had nervously blathered about all kinds of stupid things to make up for his silence, and by the time they reached the door of Isabela’s condo building, it had almost been a relief when he’d dropped her off with nothing more than a polite nod of the head and a wish for a good night. 

Rynne knew she should probably be more freaked out about Fenris’s past. Being an enforcer for the Tevinter mob was _not_ a minor revelation. But for some reason, she just couldn’t bring herself to be scared of him. Maybe she was in denial, or maybe she’d seen so many action movies that she was desensitized to the idea, but she just… didn’t mind. 

Fenris’s past didn’t change anything. He was still the same quiet, broody, private, smooth-voiced, handsome and helpful elf he’d always been. The only difference was that Rynne now knew why he was so quiet and broody and private.

How basic was it that the reveal of his dark past just made her want to kiss him all the more?

Piper grunted and poured a cup of hot tea. “What about Saturday and Sunday night, then? He walked you home all weekend and no kiss?”

Rynne slumped on the couch as Piper flitted back to her side and placed the tea on the coffee table. “No, okay? No kiss. He’s probably not interested. He probably thinks I’m just some dumb girl who needs to be looked after.” She couldn’t help but kind of feel that way herself. What the hell was the point of self-defence training if it just melted out of her brain the second she was attacked? She’d tried to headbutt the guy in the face, but that had failed, and if Fenris hadn’t shown up - 

She shivered and wrapped her arms around her knees. She could still remember the disgusting feeling of that asshole’s bulging crotch pressing against her back as he shoved her against the wall. 

_Fucking horrible_ , she thought. She reached out and grabbed the mug of tea on the coffee table, then took a gulp and scalded her tongue. 

Piper watched her worriedly, then carefully tucked the blanket around her neck and her feet. “Should’ve let Fenris cut that guy’s dick off. That would have served him right.” 

“Yeah,” Rynne sighed. “But we would have been there all night. His dick was probably microscopic and impossible to find.”

Piper snorted. “Probably. But once Fenris cut it off, we could stick it into the garnish tray with the cornichons. It would be right at home.” 

Rynne grinned at the gross image, and they both burst into raucous laughter. Then Piper wrapped her arms around Rynne’s neck in a tight hug. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” she said. “If I’d been there to watch out for you -”

Rynne hugged her back. “Oh balls, don’t be fucking stupid,” she said. “You were off having a sexy holiday! How _was_ your weekend, by the way? You didn’t tell me. How’s Ostwick at this time of year?”

Piper pulled away and shrugged. “I wouldn’t know.”

Her tone of voice was exceedingly innocent. Rynne hid her smirk and played along. “Oh? What do you mean?” she asked.

Piper coyly tugged her silvery braid over one shoulder. “We spent the whole weekend in the hotel room. Except for meals. That is, when I wasn’t devouring Cullen’s-” 

Rynne snickered and shoved Piper away. “Thank you, too much information. I don’t want to hear all the details of my best friend feasting on my lawyer’s cock, thanks very much.”

Piper cackled and shoved her in return. “Hey, you said it, not me. You’re the nasty one.”

“Ooh, who’s nasty? Do tell.” Isabela floated into the living room wearing nothing but a silken dressing gown and a grin. She flopped down on the couch beside Rynne, and one half of her gown fell open to reveal a pierced nipple. 

As always, Piper and Rynne ignored her nudity. “Piper spent the whole weekend sucking Cullen’s cock,” Rynne reported.

“And Hawke spent the whole weekend _wishing_ she was sucking Fenris’s cock,” Piper retaliated.

Rynne gasped in mock offense. “How dare you get so far into my brain? You pervert.” 

Isabela straightened up. “That’s it. I need to meet this Fenris.” She pulled her phone out of her dressing gown pocket and tapped the screen, then held the phone to her ear. 

Rynne raised an eyebrow. “Who are you calling?” 

Isabela blew her a kiss, then rose gracefully from the couch. “Josie? It’s me. I’m throwing a party this Saturday. Let’s say… seventy-five people. A smaller little thing, yes. Can you-” She paused and listened, then threw her head back and laughed. “Thanks, sweets. You know me too well.” She listened for a moment longer, then grinned and ended the call. 

She shifted her weight to one hip and planted a hand on her waist. “Bring your handsome bouncer, Hawke. I won’t take no for an answer.” 

A flutter of anticipation lit Rynne’s belly, and she and Piper grinned at each other. Then another cheerful voice joined the conversation. “Oh, are we having a party? How nice! Can I make a cake?” 

Rynne grinned as Merrill flitted through the kitchen into the living room. “Is it going to be a cake like last time? Because if so, then that’s a hard no.”

Merrill waved her hands. “No, no, that was just a mistake! Silly me, putting in a tablespoon of salt instead of a teaspoon-”

Isabela draped her arm around Merrill’s slender shoulders. “Of course you can make a cake, kitten. I’ll eat the first piece myself.” 

Merrill happily clapped her hands. “Oh good! Mihris sent me a pin with a new recipe and I’ve been hoping for a good reason to try it. It’s kind of an odd one, mind you, it’s got dragonthorn in it, but most of the reviews say the aftertaste is supposed to be lovely…” 

Piper, Merrill, and Isabela continued to chat about cakes and cocks and who to invite to the party, and Rynne pulled out her phone and flicked through to her contacts. Finally, at long last, she had a good reason to text him. 

She bit her lip as she looked at Fenris’s number. Then, with a happy little flutter of nerves, she tapped his name and started a new message thread.

 _1:27pm - hey! party at Isabela’s place this Saturday!_  
_1:27pm - you can come anytime after 8pm but the earlier the better_  
1:27pm - dont be fashionably late. i like punctuality in a man  
_1:28pm - i’ll dance with you if you’re very good ;)_

She sent the messages rapid-fire, then listened to her friends’ conversation with half an ear while she waited. 

She waited and tapped her toes impatiently for a minute or so, then rose to her feet and went to the kitchen to refresh her tea. Fenris’s phone was so archaic that Rynne probably wouldn’t get the little animated-ellipsis-thingy showing that he was typing, so she would just have to suffer the wait. 

While the kettle was boiling, she heard the _ding_ of a new text in her pocket. She hurriedly pulled out her phone.

**1:35pm - Who is this**  
**1:35pm - How did you get this number**

She laughed. She could almost hear his suspicion through the letters on her screen. She started to type a response, but his next message appeared before she could finish.

**1:36pm - Hawke?**

She grinned giddily, feeling somehow flattered that he knew it was her. She quickly finished her replies. 

_1:36pm - 10 points to the broody elf! yes, it’s Hawke_  
_1:36pm - keep your schedule clear for saturday night!_  
_1:36pm - Isabela relaly wants to meet you_  
_1:36pm - really**_

She placed the phone on the counter and stared unseeingly at the kettle while she waited. Once the kettle had boiled, she poured her tea over the teabag in her mug and picked up her phone, despite not having heard the text tone. 

Indeed, no new replies from Fenris. Rynne nibbled the inside of her cheek, then flicked around on Pinterest and saved a few fanart posts, but she was having trouble pretending to be interested in anything except the burning silence of her messaging app.

She eventually returned to the living room and forced herself to join in with the others’ conversation. An eon later, when her phone _ding_ ed again, she shamelessly whipped it out and looked at the screen.

**1:52pm - It is not a good idea.**

She frowned. She understood that he wanted to keep his head down, but he would just be one more face in the crowd at this party. 

She swiftly tapped out her replies.

_1:52pm - please come_  
_1:52pm - i promise my friends are not as bad as me_  
_1:52pm - well that might be a lie_  
_1:53pm - but i promise youll have a good time_  
_1:53pm - if you hate it, you can leave. i’ll pack you a doggie bag of snacks and everything_

Did she sound desperate? Probably. Did she care? Apparently not. She really was willing to make an idiot of herself for him, it seemed.

“So?” Isabela asked. “What’s he saying?”

Rynne didn’t bother to ask how Isabela knew who she was texting. She gave Isabela a rueful smile. “It’s touch and go. He’s not really a ‘people person’.” 

Isabela shrugged, and her silken gown slipped off of one shoulder. “Tell him we’ll all show him our tits if he comes.”

Merrill gasped and folded her arms across her chest, and Piper cackled. “Only if we all want Cullen’s face to burst into flame.”

Isabela laughed and Rynne grinned wickedly, but before she could reply, her phone dinged once more.

**1:55pm - I will think about it.**

Rynne breathed a small sigh of relief. An opening was all she needed. 

_1:55pm - yay! i’ll make sure Bels stocks up on the best red wine just for you_

She had the entire week to bring him around. Surely she could convince him to come in the space of a week.

***********************

Fenris shouldn’t have come.

He stood stock-still outside of the entrance to Isabela’s condo. It was a mistake to come here. Parties involved being introduced to people, and having them stare at him and wanting to shake hands, and remembering his face and his name in order to tell other people about him later. 

All of it boded poorly. Fenris was trying to stay incognito. He didn’t want to be looked at. He didn’t want to be remembered, so coming here was a mistake. The entire time he was walking here from Lowtown, he’d told himself that coming to this party was a mistake, and yet here he was.

He scowled at the big glass double doors for a long minute while he considered turning around and going home. Then his phone vibrated in his pocket. 

He flipped it open to find a new message from Hawke.

_9:42pm - i hope your on your way! ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)_  
_9:42pm - you’re***_  
_9:43pm - for the first you’re i mean_  
_9:43pm - fuck it you understand what i mena_  
_9:43pm - fuck’s sake_

Despite his buzzing discomfort, he couldn’t help but smile. Her texts were just like her: over the top, overly flirtatious, and impossible to ignore. And also oddly charming. 

He traced his thumb across the texts, then flipped his phone shut. He pushed open the heavy glass doors and buzzed the intercom for Isabela’s condo.

A loud voice and an indistinct buzz of noise greeted him. “Welcome to the animal house. Who dares to enter this den of debauchery?”

Fenris frowned apprehensively. The voice on the line sultry and smooth, and definitely not Hawke’s. “Is Hawke there?” he asked.

The sultry voice chuckled. “I don’t know your voice, but I bet I know who you are. Come on in, handsome.” She disconnected the call, and Fenris heard the _click_ of the inner doors unlocking.

He cast the intercom a suspicious look, then slunk through the lobby toward the elevators and hit the PH button. He held himself perfectly still as the elevator slid smoothly up to the penthouse floor, then stepped out of the elevator into a short corridor.

He immediately heard the faint thump of bass and the noise of conversation. He swallowed hard, then cautiously approached the door at the end of the hall and rang the doorbell. Moments later, a beautiful woman in a scandalously short white dress answered the door. 

She grinned at him and slid a salacious look across his body. “Wow. You must be Fenris.”

He raised one eyebrow and hid his hands in his pockets. “And you must be Isabela.”

She laughed and raised her mostly-empty crystal tumbler. “Guilty as charged. Come on in and make yourself comfortable.” 

Fenris followed her into the apartment and immediately began assessing the situation. The condo was less crowded than he’d anticipated, but that was likely more because of how enormous it was rather than the number of people per se. Two storeys, two generous sitting areas, and an enormous open-plan kitchen were the first features he absorbed, as well as the exceedingly tasteful white-and chrome decor… or at least it would be exceedingly tasteful, but it was broken up by a multitude of personal touches - knick-knacks, cushions and blankets, and wall art and plants that were variably colourful, chaotic, and cozy, and all of which clearly indicated the tastes of a number of different residents. 

“I’ll get you a drink,” Isabela said. “Red wine, right?” 

Fenris turned his attention to her and narrowed his eyes. “What else have Piper and Hawke told you?” he drawled.

Isabela smirked. “Honestly? Nothing much. Which is why I was hoping you would come. I hate missing out. What’s the point of being a famous actress if your friends are flirting with handsome boys and having all the fun at home?” 

“Hm,” Fenris said as Isabela ushered him further into the house and further into the cheerfully chattering crowd. “Is that why you have roommates? You certainly don’t seem to need them.”

“Exactly,” Isabela purred. “Why else would I own an extravagantly large penthouse if it’s not to fill it with beautiful women and party all the time?”

Fenris huffed in amusement, then followed Isabela into the kitchen. Myriad people were laughing and drinking therein, and as he waited for Isabela to pour his wine, he caught sight of a familiar face - or rather, a familiar silvery fall of hair.

He slowly drifted away from Isabela to join Piper, who was talking animatedly to an attractive blond man. “...and this asshole clips me on my bike. So naturally, I go after him.”

“Maker preserve me, Piper,” the man groaned. Piper chuckled, then glanced over in Fenris’s direction.

She straightened and smiled. “Fenris! You’re finally here! Hawke was - we weren’t sure if you were going to show!” 

He tilted his head in a polite nod. “My apologies. I wasn’t sure if I would come, either.” 

Piper’s blond companion gave him a half-smile. “Not a fan of parties, I take it?”

Fenris raised an eyebrow. “Not particularly.”

The man folded his arms. “Neither am I. The, um, unwanted attention usually makes such events more annoying than they’re worth.”

“Oh, Cullen. Are you complaining again about being too handsome?” Isabela wafted over and handed Fenris a glass of wine. “It’s such a hard life, isn’t it?”

Cullen shot Isabela a chiding look. “We don’t all make careers off of our looks, Isabela.” 

“More’s the pity,” she replied, then winked at him. 

Fenris raised his eyebrows in recognition. “So you are Piper’s boyfriend,” he said to Cullen. “She and Hawke have spoken highly of you.” 

Piper smacked herself in the forehead. “Right! You haven’t met! I’m so sorry - Fenris, this is Cullen. Cullen, Fenris.” 

Cullen smiled and held out his hand to shake. With a small internal sigh - _and so the handshaking begins_ \- Fenris briefly grasped Cullen’s proffered hand. “I hear your law practice is very successful. And very busy.” 

“Too busy, at times,” Cullen said ruefully. “I haven’t had a chance to take a case like Hawke’s in a very long time.”

Fenris frowned. “...Hawke’s?”

“Oh,” Piper said brightly. “I forgot to tell you. Cullen sometimes takes pro bono cases for us little people who can’t afford a big fancy lawyer. He’s very generous with his time that way.” She looped her hand through Cullen’s elbow and gave him an adoring look.

Isabela made a mock-vomiting noise, and Piper snickered and punched her in the shoulder. Meanwhile, Cullen cleared his throat awkwardly. His cheeks were turning pink. “It is not - she exaggerates, it’s simply my duty to help -”

“Don’t dismiss yourself,” Fenris interjected. “That is a very noble undertaking. It sickens me that the trappings of power and wealth also ensnare the justice system. The world could use more lawyers such as yourself, who care more about righting wrongs than collecting wealth.” 

Piper and Isabela stared at him, and Cullen lifted his eyebrows appreciatively. “Well. I… thank you, Fenris, that’s very kind of you to say.” 

Fenris nodded and sipped his wine, feeling increasingly awkward. The dance beats and the sounds of conversation and laughter were loud, but the stunned silence from Isabela and Piper somehow felt louder. 

He returned his gaze to Cullen. “So. You… you worked with Hawke?”

He nodded. “Yes, with the whole situation with her father and the lyrium. I was happy to help. It wasn’t -”

Fenris’s belly jolted. “Lyrium?” he said sharply. 

Cullen frowned slightly. “Yes, in his final days. She… she didn’t tell you?”

Fenris stared at him with growing discomfiture. Then Piper cut in. “Shit. Maybe she didn’t tell him,” she said to Cullen. She grimaced at Fenris. “Sorry, Fenris, she’s an open book about it, I just assumed -” 

“Fenris!” Hawke’s bright and cheerful voice cut through the noise. She bounced over and beamed at him. “You’re here, finally! Took you long enough. Did you take the scenic route through the docks to get here? If so, I hope you brought us some seafood. The shrimp cocktail leaves something to be desired.”

Isabela scoffed. “Ungrateful tart. I’ll make sure to let Josephine know.” 

“Please do,” Hawke snickered. “I mean, you know I prefer my shrimp breaded and fried, but I’m also a pleb with simple tastes.” She tilted her head at Fenris. “Is the wine okay?”

 _How are you involved with lyrium?_ The question burned through his mind. Had she been on the receiving end of it? Had someone forced her to deal it? What had Cullen been talking about? 

He tried to push his agitation aside as he scrambled for an appropriate response to her question. “I - yes, it’s fine,” he said. 

“Only ‘fine’?” Isabela said indignantly. “That’s a shame. This was supposed to be the best stock from Nevarra.” She plucked the glass from his hand and sipped it, then pouted slightly. “You’re right. It’s not great. Let me get you another.” 

“Oh. No, that’s not - that glass is fine-” he started to say, but Isabela had already turned away. 

Hawke shrugged and smiled at him. “I’m sure she knew your wine was fine. She just needed an excuse to walk away so we could all stare at her fine ass.”

At her words, Fenris instinctively looked at Isabela’s departing backside. It was admittedly a very fine one. 

He returned his gaze to Hawke, and she smiled more broadly. “Made you look,” she teased. 

He studied her playful expression. Isabela’s curves were undeniably ripe, but if Fenris was completely honest, he was more interested in the slender physique of the cheeky, pixie-haired woman in front of him. 

He stuck his hands into his pockets, wishing that he had a wine glass to hold onto. “Your dress is interesting,” he said to Hawke. Indeed, the fabric of her grey-and-white dress was the oddest print he had ever seen: a chaotic pattern of skulls and pineapples, of all the strange things. 

She beamed at him. “Thank you! It is, isn’t it?” She snickered. “Don’t think I didn’t notice your wording, though. ‘Interesting’ is not exactly a compliment.” 

“Then I misspoke,” Fenris replied. “I like it very much.” And he did. The pattern was odd, but the cut of the fitted dress was… extremely flattering. 

Hawke’s smile softened, and Fenris felt an undeniable - and treacherous - jolt of satisfaction when her cheeks started to flush. “You smooth talker,” she said happily. “Keep up the compliments, and you’re definitely invited to the next party.”

“Hmm. A dubious honour at best,” he replied.

Hawke laughed brightly at his comment. Fenris smirked, then tore his eyes away from her lovely laughing face, incidentally making eye contact with Piper.

Piper, who was watching him with a _very_ satisfied grin. 

Fenris dropped his gaze and cleared his throat uncomfortably - why was Isabela taking so long with that wine? - and was very relieved when another familiar face joined their group. 

“Well well, the broody elf has come out of his hole,” Varric said. He gave Fenris an appraising look. “Our girls finally managed to drag you out, did they?”

“You could say that,” Fenris said. “They’re very… persistent.” He shot Hawke a quick glance, and she winked at him. 

Varric chuckled. “Good. The more the merrier at these things, I say.”

Cullen _harrumphed_. “I have to say, I’m glad Isabela kept this one small. I haven’t forgotten what happened the last time.” He shot Piper a resentful look.

Piper scoffed and rolled her eyes. “I left you alone for two minutes. It’s not my fault that your resting bitch face is just as cute as your happy face.” 

“I - but - they started unbuttoning my shirt!” Cullen protested, and Piper giggled and kissed his cheek.

Fenris looked around at the crowded penthouse. “Wait. This is a _small_ party?” The house wasn’t uncomfortably crowded, but it was getting there. There were so many people that Fenris wasn’t even worrying anymore about being recognized or remembered. 

“Oh yeah,” Varric drawled. “You’ve got room to move? Then it’s a small party. This place can get worse than a nightclub on a good night.”

“Why are we even still standing in the kitchen?” Hawke demanded. “We should go upstairs. The upstairs living room is usually less busy.” 

Then Isabela reappeared behind Varric. “Sorry for the hold-up,” she said as she handed Fenris his wine. “Now, whose cock size were you gossiping about? Don’t be shy. Fill me in. I mean, I’m fairly sure Varric’s is the biggest, but let’s just say -”

“We were discussing going upstairs,” Cullen interrupted loudly. “A fine idea, I think, if it means fewer people around.”

Isabela rolled her eyes. “I thought Piper brought you along to loosen up, not so your asshole gets even tighter.” 

Cullen pursed his lips in annoyance, and Piper laughed and pinched his bum. “Come on, babe, let’s go. Everyone upstairs. Last one there has to dance on the pole for us.”

Fenris frowned. “Pole?”

Hawke blurted a tiny laugh, and Fenris glanced over to find her cheeks turning pink. She shot him an oddly coy look, then jerked her head to the right. “This way,” she said. Then she waved to a couple of other people in the main foyer. “Anders! Merrill! Come join us!” 

Feeling increasingly nonplussed, Fenris followed Hawke and her friends up the stairs to yet another seating area that was indeed centered around a pole that spanned from the ceiling to a circular platform on the floor. 

His eyebrows jumped high on his forehead. “Why…?”

Hawke sat on the couch and patted the cushion beside her, and Fenris took a seat. “It’s good exercise,” she told him. 

“And we look gorgeous doing it,” Isabela added. She leaned her elbows on the back of the couch and gave him a sly grin. “Maybe we’ll let you watch sometime.” She elbowed Hawke, and the two of them laughed dirtily, but Fenris noted that Hawke’s cheeks were still pink.

Isabela drifted away to join Varric, Cullen and Piper on the other couch, and Fenris met Hawke’s eyes. She was still smiling, but there was something else about her expression that made him feel oddly jittery. Something almost… deep, or weighted, but not in a bad way - in a nice, warm way, in fact. 

He nervously gnawed the inside of his cheek as he cast around for something to say, but Hawke spoke first. “I’m glad you’re here,” she said. 

Her tone was warm and serious. Fenris stared at her, feeling strangely at a loss for words. “I-” 

Another handsome blond stranger suddenly swooped in and hugged her. “Hawke! There you are. I was just catching up with Merrill. She was going on about that blood lotus treatment of hers and the talk she gave at the Arlathvhen, it doesn’t sound like it went over too well -”

“Anders, I told you, it wasn’t the blood lotus part they didn’t like,” a small Dalish girl interjected. She folded her arms and frowned at the new blond man. “I just didn’t explain it well. Hawke, can I practice my presentation with you next time, you know I’m not a very good public speaker…” 

The blond man shook his head. “There’s not enough evidence to support the use of blood lotus in medicine, Merrill.”

Fenris watched with growing puzzlement as the Dalish girl’s ears began turning red. “Healing isn’t all about Fereldan medicine!” she snapped. “Traditional elvhen healing isn’t worthless just because there’s insufficient research. But try telling that to your research funding bodies!” 

“You two do know this is a party, right?” Hawke drawled. “It’s not a medical conference.” 

Anders opened his mouth, then released a little chuckle and sat on the platform that the dancing pole was affixed to. “Right. Sorry, Hawke, sometimes I get overexcited -” 

“This is Fenris, by the way,” Hawke interrupted. “He works with me and Pipes. Fenris, this is Anders and Merrill. Anders is a doctor. Merrill is a Dalish healer.” 

Anders nodded politely, and Merrill smiled at Fenris. “ _Aneth ara._ I’ve never seen _vallaslin_ like yours before.” Her eyes fell on his hands, which were resting on his knees.

He frowned and tucked his hands back into his pockets. “It is not _vallaslin_. I am not Dalish.”

Merrill’s eyes widened. “Oh. I’m sorry, I thought -”

“Sorry, Hawke, I just have to tell you this one thing,” Anders interrupted excitedly. “I finally got that funding I was telling you about! We’ll be able to start the project in about a month, as soon as we’ve finalized the contract with the lyrium supplier.”

Fenris whipped around and narrowed his eyes at Anders. “You work with lyrium?”

“Yes, of course,” Anders said in surprise. “All physicians in Kirkwall do. It’s the only city in the Free Marches where the use of lyrium is legal across the board.”

“It shouldn’t be,” Fenris said brusquely. 

Beside him, Hawke went still. Anders recoiled slightly. “You can’t be serious,” he said slowly. “Lyrium saves lives. It’s both a painkiller and a stimulant for the immune system if it’s used safely-”

“There is no safe way to use lyrium,” Fenris retorted. “It’s a dangerous psychoactive drug. There is an enormous market for it in Tevinter. Where I am from, lyrium sales are the backbone of at least seventy percent of organized crime activities.”

Anders relaxed. “Ah. Well, that’s the problem. The Imperium is a specific case. The distribution is much more regulated and controlled here-”

“There is no controlling it,” Fenris said firmly. “Lyrium might be a painkiller and an immune system stimulant, but it is also extremely addictive. It is a weapon used against the poor and unknowing. Tell me, _Doctor_ , how much does a single lyrium capsule cost?”

Anders frowned, then pursed his lips. “It costs approximately $16 per capsule,” he admitted. “More, depending on the brand.”

Fenris leaned back and stretched his arms along the back of the couch. “And you think that your colleagues in this city aren’t taking advantage of that cost? I have read the local news. There have been multiple cases of physicians putting their most vulnerable patients on a higher dose than they require in order to keep them coming back for more.”

Anders glared at him. “The doctors that do that are the exception. They are _not_ the rule.” 

“When money is at play, no one is exempt from such corruption,” Fenris announced. “You are a fool if you think yourself immune.” 

Anders shot him a filthy look. “And just who are you to lecture about these matters? You work at a pub. What do you know of it?”

“Hey,” Hawke interjected. “Nothing wrong with working at a pub.”

Fenris scowled at Anders’s dismissive tone. “I know more about the dangers of lyrium than you ever will,” he snapped. “You are protected by your physician’s licence and your research funding. You know nothing of how the illicit sale and misuse of lyrium can devastate a family or a town. Or an entire country, in the case of Tevinter.” His mother’s and Varania’s faces flashed across his mind - dead because of Danarius and his lyrium business. 

Fenris had never even gotten to say goodbye. Danarius’s people had already dealt with their bodies by the time Fenris had woken up in the hospital. And then Fenris had sullied their memories by becoming addicted to the very substance that had indirectly claimed their lives.

He inhaled deeply through his nose. _It is done,_ he thought. He couldn’t change his past. He wasn’t addicted to lyrium anymore, and that had to be good enough. “Lyrium is a filthy substance, and it is the lifeblood of Tevinter,” he announced. “The Imperium is a corrupt and foul place, and it would not be so if it was not for the lax attitudes toward lyrium.”

Hawke laughed nervously and tugged at one of her many earrings. “I don’t know, Fenris. I don’t think they’d make lyrium legal in Kirkwall if the doctors and policy-making people hadn’t done their due diligence and all that.” 

Fenris shot her a hard look. “Don’t be naive. Just because something is legal does not mean it is right. The legalization of lyrium makes it that much easier to abuse.” 

Anders leaned forward. “How can you talk about lyrium like this to Hawke?” he demanded.

Fenris frowned at him. “What are you talking about?” He turned his gaze back to Hawke, who was looking increasingly uncomfortable. “What is he talking about?”

Hawke slowly met his gaze, and Fenris’s stomach jolted uncomfortably at the apologetic look on her face. But Anders piped in before she could speak. “Her father died of a lyrium overdose,” he said. “And it was the best thing for him. He would have been in agony otherwise.” 

Fenris stared at her. Bewilderment and anger were churning together in his chest. “What… why…?”

“Cancer,” Hawke said. She picked up her tumbler of brandy and idly swirled it. “It was everywhere. His bones, his brain, his organs, everywhere. We moved to Kirkwall specifically so he could be treated with lyrium. Palliative, of course, since the cancer was incurable.” She took a sip of her drink. “He killed himself with lyrium. But they thought _I_ was the one who gave him the dose that killed him.” 

Fenris’s eyes widened. “What?” he blurted. Then the pieces clicked into place. “This is how you know Cullen?”

She nodded. “He got the charges against me dropped. He’s pretty amazing, actually. There’s a good reason Pipes is head-over-heels for him.” She took another gulp of brandy and gave him a crooked little smile. “Anders didn’t even tell you the best part,” she said pleasantly. “Do you know who called the police on me?”

Fenris watched with a growing sense of dread as she finished off the last of her drink, then placed the tumbler on the table and looked at him once more. “My mother,” she said. “My mother called the police and told them I killed my dad.” Her smile widened, and then she started to laugh. 

Fenris couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t swallow. He stared at her as she laughed, then rose to her feet. “I’m going to get another drink,” she said cheerfully. “Anyone else want one?”

Merrill and Anders quietly declined, and Fenris dumbly shook his head. Hawke winked and slipped past him, then headed down the stairs without looking back. 

As soon as she was gone, Anders glared at him. “Nicely done. You really don’t know her at all, do you?”

Fenris returned his glare, but he couldn’t deny the discomfort roiling in his stomach. Most of the lyrium victims he’d encountered had been young and healthy people looking for an escape. Young elves, primarily, who thought they’d found that escape in Danarius’s dealers as they peddled lyrium as a party drug. The only physicians he’d known were the corrupt ones that Danarius worked with, who misused their prescription privileges and kept their patients addicted to lyrium for years on end. Patients like Fenris himself. 

He hadn’t encountered anyone like Hawke’s father: riddled with disease and looking to lyrium for relief. 

He rose from the couch, and Anders grabbed his arm. “Leave her alone-” 

Fenris wrenched his arm away and pinned Anders with a glare. “Touch me again, and it will be the last thing you ever do.” 

Merrill’s eyes grew impossibly large, and Anders glared back at him in silence, and Fenris made his way to the stairs to find Hawke. 

*********************

Rynne leaned her elbows on the balcony railing and took another deep breath, then another gulp of her drink. When she’d imagined getting to know Fenris a little better, this was not really what she’d had in mind. 

_He hates lyrium._ The unpleasant truth raced through her mind. Not only that, but he really seemed to hate the people who thought using it was okay. Fenris wasn’t exactly the warm and cuddly type, but she’d never seen him react so negatively toward anyone as he had toward Anders. 

But there was nothing Rynne could do about it. She couldn’t change what had happened with her father. Furthermore, she wouldn’t change it even if she had a choice. He’d been suffering, suffering for months and months with no respite even with the strongest doses of lyrium that the doctor was willing to prescribe, and with the fucking law in this city, there had been no choice. The overdose had been a mercy. 

She’d had no choice. 

Rynne took another gulp of her brandy, and her phone buzzed against her thigh.

She surreptitiously looked around, then reached between her legs and pulled her phone out of the clever little thigh strap that Piper had found during an idle afternoon of browsing around on Amazon. 

Her heart did a funny little jump as she checked the screen. The message was from Fenris. 

**10:17pm - Where are you?**

She nibbled her lip, then put her tumbler down and slowly typed out a response. 

_10:17pm - why? miss me already? ^^_

His reply came quickly. 

**10:18pm - I want to talk to you.**

She tugged nervously at her earrings. Why did he want to talk? Was he mad at her? Maybe he just wanted to compliment her dress again? A girl could hope. 

She hesitated for a moment, then scoffed at herself. _Oh, who am I kidding,_ she thought. Of course she was going to tell him where she was.

_10:18pm - i’m on the balcony. first floor, the door is close to the piano._  
_10:18pm - and no, before you ask, none of us can play the piano_  
_10:18pm - it’s just there for Isabela to lounge on and look sexy LOL_

He didn’t reply, and Rynne eventually tucked her phone back into her thigh sheath and waited with increasing nerves to see if he would show up. 

A minute later, the noise of the party spilled out onto the balcony, and Rynne turned to see Fenris stepping outside to join her. He closed the door behind him, shutting out the noise, and then it was just the two of them in the peaceful night air.

Rynne warily watched his face as he slowly approached. He looked… the same as usual. Inscrutable and serious as ever. 

She swallowed and rested her elbows on the railing again. “Come to check out the view?” she said breezily. “Kirkwall looks way better at night. It all just looks like fireflies. The darkness really hides the rampant graffiti well.”

He leaned back against the balcony railing and continued to study her in silence, and Rynne turned her gaze back to the city lights, unable to tolerate the intensity of his gaze.

A long, awkward moment later, Fenris finally spoke. “Why did your mother accuse you of killing your father?”

Rynne nervously licked her lips. “Did you know that physician-assisted suicide is illegal in Kirkwall?” she asked. 

He didn’t reply, and Rynne finally shot him a very quick glance. He was frowning slightly, but he didn’t look outright angry, so she continued. “My family is from Lothering. They have physician-assisted suicide there, but lyrium is illegal. Here in Kirkwall, lyrium is legal, but physician-assisted suicide isn’t. It’s a stupid catch-22.” She sighed and leaned more heavily on her elbows. “We came here for the pain control. Lyrium is very good for that, especially for terminal cancer patients. But… Maker’s balls, Fenris, my dad’s cancer was _everywhere_. Even the lyrium wasn’t taking the edge off. And he was too weak for us to take him back to Lothering for physician-assisted suicide. Not that my mother would have agreed to it anyway, she… well, whatever.” Rynne shrugged dismissively. “So one day, when I was alone at home with him, he asked me to help him end it.” 

“He asked _you_...?” Fenris said quietly. 

“Not to actually kill him,” she said hurriedly. “But to help him get enough lyrium to… to finish himself off.” She swallowed hard, then shot him a tiny smile. “Did you know you can take lyrium in a bunch of different ways? Pills, shots, ointments, under the tongue, all kinds of ways. My dad was getting it in a number of different ways. So for about a month, he just… cut back on how much he was taking and pretended he wasn’t in agonizing pain. And I helped him keep track of the extra stock.” 

She took a deep breath and ruffled her hair. “My mother didn’t know what we were up to. I couldn’t tell her, she… she and Carver were in denial about his prognosis. They thought… Andraste’s tits, I don’t know what they thought. That he wasn’t dying, I suppose. But they didn’t know he was planning this, or they would have tried to stop him. So once he’d stored up enough lyrium to end it all, we chose a day when they were both out running errands, and he just… started taking all of it. The pills, the sublingual tabs, everything.” She tilted her head back and closed her eyes. “By the time Mother and Carver came back, he was gone.” 

“So they thought you had done it,” Fenris said quietly. 

Rynne nodded. “I was there. The empty blister packs and everything were there. My mother…” She laughed and shook her head. Maker’s balls, her mother had completely lost her shit. Screaming that Rynne had murdered Malcolm, that she would never forgive her, that she hadn’t had a chance to say goodbye… 

It didn’t bear thinking about. Rynne shoved the memory away. “She called the police. Carver was too upset to stop her. I mean, I don’t know if he would have stopped her anyway. He’s still pretty mad at me.” She shrugged. “Cullen eventually got wind of the situation and offered to help me out like the obnoxiously good person he is. And that’s _my_ tragic little backstory.” She chuckled weakly. 

Fenris was silent for a long time, and Rynne twisted her fingers together as she waited for him to respond. There was one last piece to the story, one that gnawed at the inside of her stomach to this day - not because of the truth of it, but because nobody else knew, not even Piper. No one else knew except for Cullen, who had counselled her not to tell anyone. 

Finally Fenris sighed. “Hawke, I… don’t know what to say.”

She shrugged and gave him a wry little half-smile. “It’s all right. It’s pretty heavy shit to share at a party.”

He frowned slightly at her. “No,” he said. “It’s not all right. It… it is as you said. It sucks.” 

Rynne smiled more broadly, then laughed. “Are you reusing my words?”

He ran a hand through his snowy hair. “I… Yes, I am. I’m sorry. I am ill-equipped for this kind of… comforting.” 

He did look rather discomfited, and for some reason, it made Rynne feel more comfortable. She relaxed against the balcony railing and gently bumped his shoulder with hers. “Don’t worry about it. It sucks, sure, but it was years ago. And Anders had it right - it was the best way for him to go without suffering.” 

Fenris nodded and didn’t reply, and they stood in silence for a while.

Then Rynne spoke, very quietly. “Your former gang in Tevinter dealt in lyrium, didn’t they?”

Fenris nodded again. “Yes,” he said. “From mining to street dealing. We - they were involved in every part of it.” He clenched his jaw, and Rynne waited with bated breath until he spoke again. 

“They tried to bring my sister into the business,” he said. “She - the others on Danarius’s staff - our house was used sometimes. My sister was naive, and they acted kind to her…” He trailed off and scrubbed an agitated hand through his hair.

“It’s okay,” Rynne said quickly. “You don’t have to talk about it.” He looked so angry and so _sad_ , and her heart felt like it was swelling inside her rib cage, and this was _not_ how she’d expected this party to go.

He shook his head roughly. “It was my fault,” he snapped. “I exposed her and my mother to the lyrium trade. It came into the house because of me. I was meant to protect them, and they’re both dead.”

Rynne’s eyes widened. His mother _and_ his sister were dead? “Oh fuck,” she said. Without thinking about it, she grabbed his hand. “Fenris, I’m so fucking sorry.” 

He squeezed her fingers hard. “Lyrium is a sickness,” he told her. His voice was rough and deep and strained. “It’s a sickness, and I brought it into the house.” 

She stared into his eyes. His deep, brilliant, angry, self-recriminating green eyes. 

She desperately wanted to comfort him. To convince him that he wasn't a bad person. She opened her mouth. “I administered the last shot of lyrium to my dad,” she blurted. “He was too weak to do it himself, and I couldn’t… I couldn’t watch him suffer. So I did it. I… I killed him.”

Fenris’s eyes widened. She smiled weakly. “Cullen is the only one who knows,” she whispered. “All the evidence was circumstantial, so he got me off the hook. But… I know the truth, you know? There was no choice. If I hadn’t, my dad would have lingered on for months longer. I had no choice.” 

Fenris was still tightly holding her hand. His eyes were fixed on her face. She squeezed his fingers. “Do you think I’m a monster?” she asked. 

He frowned. He released her fingers, then slowly lifted his hand toward her face.

Rynne held her breath as he hesitated. Then, carefully, so very carefully, he wiped a tear from her cheek with his thumb. 

“You are not a monster,” he said. He lowered his hand. “You don’t know what a true monster looks like.”

Rynne swallowed hard. Her cheek was tingling from the warmth of his thumb. “ _You’re_ not a monster, if that’s what you’re thinking,” she told him. “You’re perfect.” 

Fenris’s eyebrows leapt high on his forehead, and Rynne flushed. _Damn it,_ she thought. The word had slipped out before she could stop it. She dropped her eyes and laughed nervously, but before she could speak, Fenris chuckled as well. 

“If that is what you think, then you must be quite drunk,” he said.

She glanced up at him. He still looked rather serious, but the corner of his lips was lifted in a hint of a smirk.

A wash of relief loosened her shoulders, and she laughed more genuinely. “Not nearly drunk enough for this conversation,” she joked. She jerked her head at the thumping party inside. “Want to head back in?”

He studied her for a moment, but his gaze was warmer somehow, warmer and more intense than before, and now Rynne found that she couldn’t look away. 

Her heart was pounding in her throat. His fucking forest-green eyes were so beautiful. Finally he nodded. “Yes. Let’s go,” he said. 

Rynne smiled and followed Fenris back towards the door. Perhaps this party wasn’t a total loss after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- I love stories/shows/video games etc... that use texting as a narrative device, so I had to do it. My ALL-TIME FAVOURITE FIC that does this is Solavellan fic called [Message Sent by Aicosu,](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3457130/chapters/7585658) which I have read over and over ad nauseum. I was definitely giving myself some Message Sent vibes in the writing of this chapter.  
> \- I hope there wasn’t too much medical jargon in this chapter! Physician-assisted suicide, or medical assistance in dying, is a contentious issue for some. In Canada where I live, [it is legal.](https://www.dyingwithdignity.ca/get_the_facts) In most of the USA, it is not.  
> \- In this story, lyrium is not meant to be a direct reflection of any one drug.  
> \- I hope any of my legal-y related stuff is not totally off-base. Professor Google helped me with that, so I can only pray that it was not grossly incorrect.
> 
> Feel free to [pop by on Tumblr to discuss! ](https://pikapeppa.tumblr.com/) xoxo


	5. Tequila

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little hint of smut... ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

_2:21pm - you had fun last night. admit it!_

Rynne’s phone made a little _swish_ sound as it whisked her message away to Fenris. She grinned to herself as she pulled her sunglasses from her forehead down to her nose, then stepped out into the brilliant afternoon sunshine. 

She was still on a high from how great the party was. After the intensity of the conversation on the balcony, Fenris had spent the rest of the night by her side. They’d both continued drinking, and he’d started loosening up, and Rynne lost her breath every damned time he laughed. He talked more than she’d expected, firmly sharing his opinions in the ebb and flow of conversations as they moved among the various groups of people in the house, and he was just… 

He was so fucking smart. And articulate. And surprisingly opinionated. Rynne hadn’t expected that either, given how infrequently he participated in chit-chat at the Hanged Man. But now that she’d seen him talking more freely, it was more obvious than ever that his customary reserved silence masked an unceasing river of thought rather than a lack of anything important to say. 

His opinions didn’t always match with hers. In addition to the lyrium issue, Fenris favoured the death penalty and really seemed to hate big corporations like Amazon. Rynne, on the other hand, supported rehab for convicted criminals and didn’t particularly care where her stuff came from as long as it was cheap. She and Fenris butted heads a few times, and the conversation became rather heated on more than one occasion - too heated for Isabela, who complained that this was a party and not a courthouse - but somehow, Rynne always managed to diffuse the tension and make him smile. 

And as soon as Fenris smiled, every hint of cogent thought fled her foolish brain.

He’d followed her from the couch to the kitchen to the games room, scoffing at her jokes and returning her teasing with rapid-fire retorts that made her laugh so hard her stomach hurt. He’d point-blank refused to dance with her, but it hadn’t stopped _her_ from dancing up on him like the shameless tart that she was. At one point, while she was twisting in front of him like a snake, he put his hand on her waist. 

Fenris had _touched_ her. Touched her of his own free will, twice in a single night. He’d shaken his head and smirked at her as his elegant, tattooed fingers squeezed her waist, and…

Maker’s balls, Rynne really wanted to fuck him. 

But it was so much more than that. Usually Rynne was happy to hop into bed with whoever caught her interest, and if the fling became more than physical, that was a happy plus. But with Fenris… She got the sense that that wouldn’t work for him, and that she’d have to wait for him to come around to the idea of sleeping with her. 

Rynne didn’t care. She was more than happy to wait. She would wait for him for months if she had to, because she could happily admit the truth: in the space of less than two months, she’d become more attached to Fenris than to any other romantic partner she’d ever had. 

Fenris knew her worst secret, the one she’d been forced to hold most closely to her chest, and he didn’t think she was a horrible person for what she’d done. He’d given her a few secrets of his own, and she knew that was no small thing for him. Somehow, for some reason, Rynne trusted him at a visceral, instinctual level, just as much as she trusted Piper and Cullen. And in the most uninhibited depths of her heart, she knew that she would wait for him for as long as it took. 

But hopefully it wouldn’t take _too_ long. 

She cheerfully hummed along to her tropical house playlist as she made her way to Athenril’s coffee shop in Lowtown. She was so busy rehashing the happy events of the previous night that she was halfway to Lowtown before she realized that Fenris hadn’t texted her back.

She pulled out her phone and swiped through to her messages.

 _2:33pm - fine, play coy, i dont mind ;)_  
_2:33pm - seriously though i’m really glad you came_

She popped her phone back in her pocket, but to her happy surprise, it _ding_ ed less than a minute later.

**2:34pm - Thank you for having me.**

_I haven’t had you yet,_ she thought cheekily. But she would keep that thought to herself. For now, at least.

_2:34pm - anytime ^^_  
_2:34pm - are you super hungover? did i wake you up? lol_

**2:34pm - No. I’ve been up for hours. Some of us don’t have the luxury of blackout curtains in every bedroom window.**

_Aw. So snarky,_ she thought fondly. She could imagine the crease of his eyebrows and the smirk on his lips as he texted her. The image fostered a warm feeling in her belly, and she grinned to herself as she stepped into the road. 

“Hawke! Be careful!” A strong female hand grabbed her elbow and pulled her back, and Rynne squealed in alarm as a taxi screeched around the corner in the spot where she’d just been standing. 

“Fuck!” Rynne gasped. She pulled out one earphone and stared up at Aveline, who was scowling at her with a look that she usually reserved for shoplifting teenagers. “Av! My hero! Kirkwall’s finest at her very best! How are you?” 

“I’m fine. But you need to pay attention to your surroundings,” Aveline scolded. “Turn your music down. You would have heard that cab coming if your music was quieter.”

Rynne tilted her head playfully. “Sorry, I couldn’t hear you over my music. What was that you said?”

Aveline pursed her lips. “Very funny.” She waved a hand for Rynne to cross the street, and they made their way in the direction of Lowtown together.

“Seriously though, how are you?” Rynne asked. “How’s Donnic?”

Aveline’s expression softened at the mention of her husband. “He’s well, thank you. Enjoying paternity leave.” She smiled slightly, and Rynne grinned at the pinkness of the police captain’s cheeks.

“And how’s Carver doing?” Rynne asked. “I hope he listens to you more than he ever listened to me. It would be embarrassing for a police officer to get another ticket for parking in a no-parking zone.”

“He’s doing very well,” Aveline replied. Her tone held a hint of censure. “He’s a hard worker, you know. A good addition to the precinct. And yes, he listens well, so no complaints there.” Aveline shot her a sideways look. “It’s been a while since you’ve seen each other, hasn’t it?”

Rynne shrugged casually. “Yep.” It had been about six months, in fact. But it was better this way. It wasn’t like Carver wanted to see her, anyway. 

She changed the subject. “What are you doing out in these parts, anyway?” she asked. “I thought you were more of a desk jockey these days. Are half of the precinct on vacation or something?”

Aveline pursed her lips again. “A good captain keeps her eyes and ears on the street whenever she has a chance,” she announced. She gave Hawke a knowing look. “ _You_ should be grateful that I’m out and about. You’d be roadkill otherwise.” 

“That I would,” Rynne chuckled, and she slipped her hand through the crook of Aveline’s arm. “Care to escort me the rest of the way to Athenril’s, just in case I decide to wander into traffic again?”

Aveline smiled. “I’m afraid not. I’ll be leaving you here, actually. I’m off to the docks.” She patted Rynne’s hand, then pulled away. “Be careful,” she warned. “Volume down!” 

“Yeah, all right!” Rynne waved and popped her earphones back in at full volume, then pulled her phone out again. 

No further texts from Fenris. The ball was still in her court.

 _2:40pm - hey, those blackout curtains are necessary ok_  
_2:40pm - you don’t know this, but im actually a vampire_  
_2:41pm - i spontaneously combust in direct sunlight_  
_2:41pm - none of that sparkly diamond skin twilight bullshit. i’m the real deal_

She held her phone loosely in her hand as she strolled along. When he didn’t reply a few minutes later, she lifted her phone and tapped out another message.

_2:44pm - what are you up to today? wanna hang out later?_

She sent the message before she could stop to think twice. Maybe she was being overeager, but she’d _really_ enjoyed spending time with him last night. They were both off work until Tuesday, and if she had to wait that long to see him again, she would drive Piper up the wall with her gushing.

By the time she reached Athenril’s coffee shop, he still hadn’t replied. But as luck would have it, he didn’t need to. As Rynne stepped into the cafe, she instantly spotted a familiar black-clad and hooded figure standing at the counter with his hands shoved into his pockets.

She grinned, then sashayed over to him and leaned against the counter. “Excuse me, sir. Are you a janitor? Because you’ve swept me off my feet.”

Fenris recoiled at her abrupt appearance, then his eyebrows rose as he recognized her. “Hawke! What are you doing here?”

“Inspecting the goods, of course,” she said. She bit her lip and gave him a coy smile. 

To her slight disappointment, he didn’t smirk in return. Instead, he ran a hand over his hood and dropped his gaze. 

Rynne straightened up. “I’m picking up an order,” she explained. “It’s our usual after-party thing. Unfortunately, I drew the short straw for pick-up today.” She stood on her tiptoes and waved at Emile, who held up two fingers to her. 

She nodded, then turned back to Fenris. “Did you get my text?” she asked brightly. 

“I did,” he confirmed. And he said nothing more. 

Rynne frowned slightly. He wasn’t looking her in the eye. Maybe he was just really focused on getting his coffee, but she was getting a distinctly weird vibe from him. 

Well, he’d been weird when she first met him, and that hadn’t thrown her off. “So. What are you up to today?” she said. “Want to come over and hang out with us?” 

“I’m sorry, I can’t,” he said. “I’ve… I have errands to look after.” He nodded at the barista as she handed him his coffee, then turned away from the counter and from Rynne. 

Her stomach started writhing. What was wrong with him? Had _she_ done something wrong? She could hear Isabela’s voice in her mind telling her to brush him off and let it go, but Rynne’s shameless, prideless tongue wouldn’t stop wagging. 

She followed him as he moved toward the door. “Do you want to go for dinner with me?” she blurted. “There’s an Antivan tapas place that just opened in Hightown. I haven’t been there yet, but Varric said the fish tacos are to die for.” 

“No,” Fenris said bluntly. “I mean - no, thank you. I will see you on Tuesday.” He finally looked her in the eye - the briefest, most neutral look - then pushed open the door to the coffee shop and left. 

Rynne stood dumbly near the door as she watched him leave. Then she slowly made her way back to the counter. 

“Hé, Hawke!” Emile glided over and handed her a tray of drinks and a paper bag as he reeled off their regular order. “One Nevarran spiced chai, one espresso, one black drip coffee and one Arlathan apple spice, and one mixed box of Orlesian petit-fours… hey, are you okay?”

She hauled her face into a smile. “Yeah,” she lied. “I just remembered I haven’t done my taxes yet.” 

Emile’s face fell. “Ah _merde_ , I haven’t either! My father will have a fit…” He pulled his phone from his pocket and began madly tapping at the screen.

Rynne grimaced guiltily and backed away from the counter. “Er, sorry! I’ll, uh, see you later.” She hurried away from the counter and left the cafe, but as soon as she was on the street again, she let her smile fall away.

Her chest felt heavy, like someone had dropped a pile of rocks into her rib cage. Why was Fenris being so cold? Maybe she’d said something stupid last night that she didn’t remember. She had been pretty drunk by the end of the night. 

Or maybe she was just a deluded idiot, and he wasn’t actually interested in her at all.

She pulled her sunglasses down to hide her burning eyes. _It doesn’t matter. He’s just a boy,_ she told herself. A handsome, intelligent boy with hidden depths, but still just a boy. As Isabela would say, boys come and go - literally and metaphorically - and they were imminently replaceable.

Maybe if she kept telling this to herself, the stupid childish pain in her chest would go away. 

Maybe if she kept telling this to herself, she would start to believe it. 

********************

Hawke slid Fenris’s water with lime across the bar. “Hey,” she said.

He nodded. “Hawke,” he greeted, but she’d already glided away to the other side of the bar. 

Fenris watched her wistfully for a moment, then lifted his water and turned around on his stool to face the rest of the pub. The Hanged Man was relatively quiet, as was usual for a Tuesday; they didn’t do karaoke on Tuesdays, so the customary mix of 80s new wave and 90s grunge was pumping through the speakers and carrying the conversational susurrus of the laid-back post-work crowd. 

Fenris sighed quietly. He slid his hand into his pocket and idly toyed with his phone. This was the first contact he’d had with Hawke since he’d run into her at Athenril’s cafe on Sunday. She hadn’t sent him a single text since then. 

She’d only started texting him regularly about a week ago, but it was odd how quickly he’d become accustomed to the presence of her sunny swearing and ridiculous typos on his phone. Since the run-in on Sunday, she’d gone completely radio silent. It was… 

_Necessary,_ he told himself. It was necessary. She was getting too close, and Fenris couldn’t let that happen. The closer she got, the more dangerous it was for them both. 

He’d been a fool at the party on Saturday. On the balcony during that moment of weakness, he’d told her Danarius’s name, and it was a foolish fucking mistake. Knowing even that much information was a risk to them both. What if she tried to Google Danarius, and someone was spying on her search histories and tracked her down to get information about Fenris’s whereabouts? Fenris used a VPN for all his online browsing, but Rynne didn’t seem the type to care about that kind of thing. Fenris wasn’t ready for Danarius and his men to come after him. He needed more time. 

If Hawke learned anything more about Fenris, it could compromise his goals. His revenge would be at stake. Worse yet, Hawke herself would be in danger, and Fenris’s blood ran cold at the thought of any harm coming to her.

He briefly turned back to the bar and lifted his water. As he sipped from his glass, he glanced at Hawke again; she was leaning her elbows on the bar and giggling with a pair of businessmen. 

“Puppy eyes.”

He turned and met Piper’s shrewd amber gaze. “What was that?”

“Puppy eyes,” she repeated. “That’s what Merrill would call your face right now.” Her eyebrows were lifted and her lips were pursed; her expression was the definition of _unimpressed._

Fenris frowned and turned away. “There are no puppy eyes.” 

Piper snorted. She leaned over the bar and stared at the side of his face. “This would be cute if we were all sixteen. News flash: we’re not. We’re all fucking adults.” 

Fenris refused to look at her. He restlessly ran his thumb across his phone. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“Yes you do,” Piper retorted. For a long moment, she stared fixedly at him as though he was a bizarre piece of art, then straightened up and wafted away. 

Fenris scowled at her slender back, then replaced his glass of water on the bar and went to sit by the door of the Hanged Man. Only one bouncer was needed on Tuesdays to monitor the inside the pub, but Fenris couldn’t help but wish he could sit outside today. 

An agonizing few hours later, after the waitstaff had cleaned up and gone home, Fenris made his way to the bar while Piper and Hawke were starting to lay out the cash. But before he could say goodnight, Piper raised her eyebrows at him. 

“I have to leave early,” she said. 

Hawke’s head whipped up at her words. “What? Since when?”

“Since two hours ago,” Piper said pertly. “Cullen got off work early tonight, so guess who else will be getting off early?” She waggled her eyebrows suggestively.

Hawke groaned and rolled her eyes. “Wow. That was a stretch, even for you.”

Piper snickered and bumped Hawke’s hip. “It was clever and you know it.” She smiled as Hawke chuckled, then turned back to Fenris. “Can you help Hawke to count the cash?”

Fenris tensed, and Hawke’s grin immediately slid away. “What? No! I can do it on my own-”

Piper flapped her hands. “No, Fenris can help.” She looked at him. “I asked Varric already, he’s paying you for an extra hour. That works out for everyone, right?” Piper’s tone was light and friendly, but her eyes were like daggers on his face. 

He clenched his jaw and gave her a hard stare, but her strong chin was belligerently lifted, and… well, the whole point of being here was the money. If he was being paid for an extra hour… 

He turned his gaze to Hawke. “I’ll help. Tell me what to do, and it is done.” 

Hawke stared at him for a second, then smiled tightly and shoved a pile of twenties toward him. “Fine. I hope you can do math.”

He frowned slightly. “Of course I can.” He sat on a bar stool across from her and lifted the pile of bills. 

“Good,” Hawke said. “Because I can’t. Pipes is the brains of this operation.” 

Piper laughed. “Nice try, bitch. You’re brilliant too.” She checked her phone, then hitched her purse onto her shoulder and waved at them. “Cullen’s just outside. Have a good night!” 

“Bye. I hate you,” Hawke called to her departing back.

“Love you too!” Piper chirped, and then she was gone, leaving Fenris and Hawke alone. 

Hawke stared blankly at him for a second, then shot him an alarmingly bright smile. “Who wants a drink?” She turned away and grabbed a lower-shelf bottle of tequila, then pulled out two shot glasses. 

“Oh. Er - perhaps just one-” Fenris said dumbly, but Hawke was already pouring him a shot. 

She pushed the tiny glass of tequila across the bar to him, then poured one for herself and immediately drank it. “Want a piece of peach with that?” she asked. “Piper calls it Fen’harel’s Fuzzy Cock. Well, she does when we add some lime juice to it. Three ingredients makes it a cocktail.” She winked at him as she poured herself a second shot. 

“No,” Fenris said. “No peach is necessary.” He downed the shot and winced at the harsh burn of cheap liquor, then began counting the stack of twenties.

Hawke chattered the entire time they were counting the cash. Fenris listened as she complained about her favourite food stand in Lowtown closing last week and an outlandish anime she’d just finished watching and how she was planning a trip to Rivain in a couple of months. He watched with no small amount of wonder as she managed to swiftly count the cash and write the amounts on a spreadsheet while simultaneously talking and pouring them shot after shot of tequila. 

By the time the task was almost done, Fenris was feeling a little hazy from the drinks, and he wasn’t sure how helpful he had ultimately been. “You may want to check this,” he confessed as he pushed a pile of dimes toward her. “I counted twenty-three, but I… I may have miscounted.”

She grinned at him. Her coppery eyes were brilliant from the booze. “Some helper you are,” she teased. She quickly counted the coins again, her face briefly furrowing into a frown as she counted them, then gave him a satisfied smile. “You’re good,” she said, and she wrote the amount on her spreadsheet, then began to tally it all up with a calculator.

Fenris watched her as she worked. She hummed to herself as she tapped in the numbers, some song that was vaguely familiar to him from earlier that night. Her face was peaceful and her tiny smile was sweet, and… 

_Venhedis,_ he wished his life really were this simple. If only he really was just a man working at a pub with a beautiful woman who hummed happy songs while she counted the cash. But this kind of simplicity, of uncomplicated peace and quiet… This was as foreign to Fenris as his native language was to her, and there was no point pining for something so bright when all his future held was blood. 

She looked up from her spreadsheet and tapped at the computer over the till, then punched her fist in the air. “ _Yesss._ Counted the cash while drunk. Pipes and Varric will be so proud! Or horrified. I can’t decide.” She grinned at him, but her smile froze when she met his eyes. 

He stared at her, unable to breathe and unable to look away from her stricken expression. Then she dropped her eyes and began replacing the cash into the drawer. “Fenris, can you put the bigger bills into that envelope, we’ll lock it up separately in the safe-” 

He reached out and took her hand. “Hawke,” he blurted, “I… I am sorry.” 

Her hands went still, and her eyes darted back to his face. “Sorry for what?” she said faintly. 

He hesitated as he realized that he wasn’t entirely sure what to apologize for. He hadn’t forced Hawke to talk to him, after all. She’d flirted with him and garnered his unwavering attention without any particular encouragement from him. He hadn’t asked her to be his friend. He hadn’t asked her to become the first person he’d trusted in a very long time. If he was sorry for anything, it was that he’d indulged her incessant attempts at conversation and gotten them both into this uncomfortable position in the first place. 

But he couldn’t tell her that, not without explaining why they couldn’t be… whatever she clearly wanted this to be. Finally he settled on a cheap diversion. “You’re a beautiful woman. Is there no one else who has your attention?” 

Her eyebrows leapt high on her forehead, and she smiled. “I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that first part.”

He gave her a chiding look. “I’m a Tevinter gangster with years’ worth of blood on my hands,” he said bluntly. “None of those things bother you?” 

She turned her hand in his grip and squeezed his fingers. “You’re not a gangster anymore,” she said. 

A wriggle of guilt burrowed into Fenris’s belly, but Hawke wasn’t finished. “Besides, if I was interested in anyone else, I’d be with them. I’m only interested in you.” 

He stared at her with growing puzzlement. “Why?” he said hoarsely. Now that he thought about it, he genuinely wasn’t sure why she was so drawn to him. He wasn’t even particularly nice to her. _Kaffas_ , he’d been a downright ass the last time he’d seen her, and purposely so. 

She raised an eyebrow and smiled slowly at him. “What, you want me to list all the reasons?”

With horror, he realized that it indeed sounded like he’d been soliciting compliments. “No,” he said hastily, but it was too late; she was already pouring more shots and talking. 

“You’re smart. You’re funny when you’re in the mood. When you’re not in the mood, your angry face makes me want to rip my clothes off. I…” She trailed off and ran a hand through her tufty hair. “You _get_ me, Fenris. Or I thought you did.” She downed the shot and poured herself another. “It also doesn’t hurt that you’re fucking gorgeous.” She tilted her head. “Why are you asking me this? Do you like _me?_ ”

With a slightly shaking hand, he gulped the shot she’d poured, then watched as she filled his glass again. “That is not the issue,” he hedged. “Whether I like you or not is irrel-”

She bluntly cut him off. “It’s a simple question, Fenris,” she said. “Do you like me, or don’t you? I can’t tell, you see. I need you to break it down for me like the idiot that I am.”

He shook his head in growing exasperation. This was not where he’d meant this conversation to go. Where… where _had_ he meant this conversation to go? He couldn’t quite remember. 

He lifted the shot glass to his lips. “We shouldn’t be together,” he insisted, then downed the shot.

She frowned, then placed her glass on the bar with a clatter and poured two more. “I told you stuff about me that no one else knows. And I thought… I thought it was the same for you. Was I wrong?” 

“N-no,” Fenris said. He was feeling increasingly agitated. He was starting to get the distinct sense that he was being interrogated; ironic, since he was the one who had clumsily started this conversation. 

“Then what’s the problem?” she asked. “Do you like me or not? That’s all that-”

“Yes,” he finally snapped. “Yes, I do, all right? I like you, Hawke. I think about you, and… in fact, I’ve been able to think of little else.” He snatched the shot from the bar and gulped it in one big swallow, then slammed the glass on the bar and glared at her. 

Her mouth had dropped into a comical little ‘o’. Fenris dragged a hand through his hair. “Why are you staring at me like that?” he demanded. 

Her expression slowly lifted into a brilliant smile. “I didn’t expect you to say ‘yes’,” she said. Then she burst into laughter.

Fenris planted one elbow on the bar and pointed at her accusingly. “You see? This - your - you laugh like this and it… You drive me mad with your incessant flirting and your laughing and that macabre little dress of yours with the skulls-”

“Oh, _that_ dress,” she drawled. Her voice was vibrant with mirth, like laughter smoothed and curled into speech. “You liked that dress, did you?” 

“I…” He buried his spinning head in his hands, then scowled at her again. “I wanted to peel it off and watch it pooling around your feet,” he growled. 

Her eyes widened, and Fenris watched with a nearly-vindictive rush of satisfaction as her cheeks turned pink. “Well, fuck me sideways,” she breathed. 

Her evocative curse painted a brilliant picture in his mind: Hawke naked and sweaty, stretched on her side while he slid up behind her and stroked the inside of her thigh… 

A roar of heat blazed through his chest from throat to groin, and he dragged in a heavy breath. His eyes were fixed on her lips, her plump and parted lips, and suddenly it felt like he couldn’t catch his breath, not even if he was panting for it.

Then Hawke lunged toward him and hooked her hand around the back of his neck, and before he could do more than gasp in surprise, she was kissing him.

Hawke was kissing him. Hawke’s lips, her fingers on his neck, it was… she was… 

The next thing he knew, he was on his feet with one hand gripping her short dark hair as he leaned over the bar and kissed her back, and she was whimpering against his lips like the wanton little thing she was. There was a faint clatter of coins as she splayed her palm on the bar - the bar, the fucking blasted bar that stood between them, separating them and stopping them from doing something stupid- 

She petted his neck and released a tiny sob of want when he nipped her lower lip. “Fenris,” she begged. “I want - I…”

“Come here,” he breathed. This was a foolish thing to do, an act of complete idiocy, but Fenris couldn’t stop: he was drunk on her, intoxicated by the reddened look of her lips and the taste of tequila on her tongue and the sheer shining joy in her eyes, and he wanted this more than he’d ever wanted anything in his cursed life. 

Hawke smiled against his lips, then pushed away from the bar and hefted herself onto its surface, and Fenris gaped at her as she clumsily scrambled over the bar and onto her feet beside him.

She grabbed the lapels of his jacket. “Now, where were we?”

He didn’t waste his breath replying. He dragged her against his body and slid his thigh between her legs, then swallowed her rapturous cry with another kiss. 

She slid her tongue against his own, then broke away with a moan as he slipped his fingers into her loose camisole and up along her ribs. “Fucking Maker’s balls,” she whined, then she gasped and thrust her hips against his leg as he snuck his fingers under her bra and pinched her nipple. 

He breathed hard as he palmed her pert little breast. His body was thrumming, heavy and pulsing with the strength of his need for her, and he hadn’t felt this way in years. He hadn’t wanted this in years, not since he’d had the tattoos branded on his skin. The tattoos represented so many layers of resistance, of pain and emptiness and regret. Especially since leaving Tevinter, Fenris hadn’t wanted to be seen with these metaphorical scars staining his skin. 

But in this moment, he would strip himself bare in the space of a second if it meant Hawke would strip herself as well. 

He carefully licked her lower lip. “Let’s leave,” he whispered.

She pressed her lips together, then gasped again as he pinched her nipple harder. “Oh fuck,” she whined. “I… Fenris, we have to lock up the cash, I can’t just…” 

He growled in frustration, and she laughed breathily. “You making that sound does _not_ make this easier for me,” she panted. She pushed gently at his chest. 

He reluctantly allowed her to step away, then penned her between his body and the bar. “A renegade with a work ethic?” he whispered in her ear. 

She shivered prettily, and her hands were clumsy as she collected the cash. “Exactly,” she replied. “Never let it be said that I shirked my duties to this lovable dump.” She shoved the bigger bills into an envelope and replaced the remaining money in the drawer, then picked it all up and shifted away from him. “I’ll be super quick, I promise.”

He allowed her to move away, then shamelessly watched as she hurried to Varric’s office and let herself inside. While Hawke locked up the cash in Varric’s safe, Fenris pulled up his hood and wandered restlessly toward the door. 

This was a bad idea, and he knew it. It was stupid and irresponsible, and he suspected that he was going to regret it tomorrow, but it just felt so fucking right. The lingering feeling of Hawke’s hands on his skin, stroking his neck and pressing against his chest - it warmed and riled him the more he thought about it. He thought about her lips and the sharp taste of her tongue, and it was so fucking wrong and selfish and unfair, and he was powerless to stop. 

The distinct _click_ of a lock caught his attention. He turned to see Hawke hurrying toward him with her phone in her hand. “I called an Uber,” she said. “It’ll be here in two minutes.”

Two minutes. He had two minutes to do the right thing. To tell her this was a mistake, that he was a complete and utter ass whose only legacy was a trail of bodies and blood and death, and that she should write him off altogether… 

She slid her palms along his abs and lifted herself on her toes. “Kiss me while we wait,” she whispered. 

He instinctively gripped her hips as she leaned into his chest. “You’re very demanding,” he said.

“Of course I am. This is everything I wanted,” she retorted. She bit her lip, and her gaze drifted up to his eyes. “You’re all I think about, too,” she murmured. 

And just like that, Fenris was sunk. His resistance and his reasons were gone, obliterated by the woman in his arms, and in the muddled mess of his sex-scrambled mind, he couldn’t bring himself to care.

In this moment, all he cared about was her: the charming and infuriating woman in his arms, with all her merriness and her melancholy. And for tonight, Fenris was hers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHHHHHH I'M SORRY I'M SORRY, THIS IS A TERRIBLE TIME TO END A CHAPTER, BUT THE NEXT ONE WILL BE UP EITHER TONIGHT OR TOMORROW I PROMISE!!
> 
> I owe the phrase 'Fen'harel's fuzzy cock" to Tumblr's @ocean-in-my-rebel-soul, who once left that phrase in a comment on one of my fics and made me DIE with laughter. I have never forgotten it. <3 
> 
> [Come scream Fenhawke at me on Tumblr](https://pikapeppa.tumblr.com/) if you like!! xoxo


	6. Crashing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Voilà, the smut promised at the end of the last chapter! Thanks for your patience! XD

Intoxicating, your kiss  
Intoxicating, your lips  
Nobody does it like this, I find it hard to resist  
Feeling out of control, beautifully sold  
What's coming over me?  
It's a total eclipse of rationality

I don't usually say this, I don't usually play this game  
Yeah, I know I'm not faded  
But it kinda feels that way  
I don't usually say this, but I think I should let you know  
That baby, I don't wanna go

How could I go home when I feel like I belong in your arms?  
It's like champagne, feel it pouring in my veins  
Yeah, I got myself too drunk on you to drive  
So I'm crashing here tonight

[ \- “Crashing” by Illenium ft. Bahari](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y28JxXmX1z8)  
***************

Fenris kissed her the entire ride home, and Rynne felt like she was drowning in bliss.

He was eager and hungry, more hungry than she’d imagined he would be, and it was an extremely pleasant surprise. He was usually so reserved and still, but from the fierce quality of his touch, Rynne almost got the sense that he’d dropped some kind of barrier tonight. His hands were firm and strong and everywhere at once: tugging her hair and stroking her collarbone, sliding beneath her leather jacket to cradle the small of her back, then sliding along the side of her thigh as he pulled her across the seat toward him. Maybe it was the forced one-on-one time that had lowered his inhibitions, or maybe it was just the booze; hell, the tequila had certainly broken Rynne’s inhibitions and made her blather all kinds of unfiltered crap at him. Whatever it was, Rynne was fucking delighted.

He growled against her cheekbone as he squeezed her denim-clad thigh. “How much longer?” he demanded. 

She craned her neck slightly to look out the window, then bit her lip as he leaned forward and nipped the side of her throat. “Um,” she said shakily, “it’s - it’s just, um. Another minute…” 

Then his fingers were on her jaw, turning her face back toward him, and she happily gripped his shoulders and gave herself over to the firmness of his lips. Their driver let out a heavy and pointed sigh, but Fenris’s hands were hot at the nape of her neck and the dip of her waist, and she didn’t have any attention to spare for polite Uber decorum right now. 

Finally the car came to a stop. “You’re ‘ere,” the driver drawled. “Don’t mind me. I’m just the driver.” 

Rynne reluctantly peeled her lips away from Fenris’s, then smiled sheepishly at their gaunt-faced chauffeur. “Thanks, Samson. It’s been, er… I mean. Good driving! Yep. Thanks!” She slid out of the car with Fenris at her heels. 

She slapped a hand over her mouth as she traipsed through the heavy glass doors of her building, then tapped her key fob to enter the foyer. “Poor guy,” she giggled. “I mean, I bet he sees that all the time, but still.” She hit the elevator button, then turned toward Fenris. 

He snaked an arm around her waist and dragged her close, and Rynne giggled again as she stumbled against his chest. “Can I help you with something?” she said playfully. 

“Yes,” he said. He gently kissed her once, then twice, then lightly tugged her lower lip with his teeth. “Take off your jacket,” he whispered. 

She dreamily closed her eyes. One of his arms was tight around her waist, but the fingers of his free hand were tugging at the collar of her jacket. “You can’t wait until we get upstairs?” she murmured.

“I am perfectly capable of waiting,” he replied. “But I don’t want to.” He peeled her jacket away from one shoulder as the elevator door slid open, then walked her backwards into the elevator and penned her against the wall. 

Rynne whimpered and pressed her hips toward him. His teeth were on her shoulder, nipping a line toward the tendon in her neck, and she tilted her head to the side to give him better access. “If you’re not careful, I’m going to fuck you right here,” she panted. 

He lifted his chin, and Rynne shivered anew as he brushed his lips across her ear. “Would you rather I back away?” he murmured. “Stand politely beside you as the elevator brings us to your home?”

“You _are_ awfully polite most of the time,” she replied cheekily. Then she tensed in breathless anticipation as his hand slipped under the hem of her top.

His tongue traced the unpierced edge of her ear. “Not tonight,” he whispered. “I am not in in the mood to be polite tonight.” 

She pressed her lips together and whimpered in response. His palm was flat on her belly, a solid and teasing heat that sat just above the waistband of her jeans, and it was almost more than she could bear. 

The elevator finally reached the penthouse floor, and Rynne slid away from him and practically ran down the short corridor to the door of their condo. She unlocked the door with trembling hands, then pushed it open and let herself in. 

“Let’s be quiet-” she started to say, but Fenris’s hand was on the small of her back - no, it was sliding around her waist and up inside her shirt again, oh _fuck_ \- and then he pulled her back against his chest and pressed his mouth to her ear, and Rynne couldn’t breathe. 

“Who’s home?” he whispered. 

She inhaled shakily and arched into his hand. The tips of his fingers were burrowing into the cup of her bra. “ _Ah_ …” 

“Hawke. Who is home?” he repeated, quietly but firmly. 

“I don’t know,” she blurted. “Maybe - maybe Merrill…?” Frankly, she didn’t give a fuck who was home. If Fenris told her he wanted to bend her over naked on the kitchen counter while Isabela watched, she wasn’t sure she would refuse. 

He grunted and bit the side of her neck, then released her and gently pushed her hip. “Lead the way,” he whispered. “I enjoy following you.” 

She stumbled slightly in the dark as she weaved her way toward the stairs, then grinned over her shoulder at him. “Are you an ass man, then? Is that what you’re saying?” She tossed her purse on the couch and kicked off her boots, then started up the stairs.

He followed her to the top of the stairs, and Rynne yelped when he suddenly cupped her ass. “I am a man who enjoys every asset I see,” he replied smoothly. “And I see many assets tonight.” 

She covered her mouth to stifle her giddy laughter and pushed open the door to her room. “Such a smooth talker,” she whispered. She tapped on her bedside lamp, then turned to him with a grin. “What else can you tell me in that gorgeous smooth voice of yours?”

He closed the door behind them and raised one eyebrow. “I can tell you that I want you naked,” he said matter-of-factly. 

Rynne forced herself to take a breath. His tone was light and playful, but his eyes - those beautiful, brilliant green eyes of his… They were fixed on her face, steady and serious, and suddenly Rynne wondered if he was as drunk as she’d originally thought. 

He was watching her still, his hands hanging loosely at his sides, and the longer he looked at her, the more sober she felt… and the more strongly the thrum of excitement in her groin began to pulse.

She shucked off her jacket and let it slide to the floor, and Fenris’s eyebrows rose in approval. He took a step closer to her. “Go on,” he said. 

She gathered the hem of her cami in her hands, then peeled it over her head in one smooth motion and tossed it aside, and Fenris took another slow step toward her. She kept her eyes on his face as she unfastened her bra, then dropped it on the floor. 

He was right in front of her now, a mere few inches away, and his eyes were smoldering with focus as they drifted over her bare breasts. He lifted a hand and brushed his thumb _very_ gently beneath her nipple.

Rynne hissed in a breath, and Fenris released a slow exhale. “Hawke,” he whispered. “You are unlike any woman I have ever met.” 

His fingers were carefully stroking her breast in an almost thoughtful caress, and Rynne swallowed hard. “How so?” she said hoarsely. 

He chuckled softly, and she almost melted at the cherished sound. “Do you wish me to list all the ways?” he asked.

She opened her eyes and managed a cheeky smile. “Will you sing me the list?” she said coyly. “That’s what I’d really like to hear.”

“Ah. This again,” he grumbled, and Rynne grinned as he pursed his lips. Then she lost her breath again as his hands drifted low to tug at the fly of her jeans. “Perhaps you should sing for me, instead.”

She shrugged in a would-be casual manner as he unbuttoned her jeans. “Sure,” she said. “I’d be happy to the next time we’re at the Hanged Ma-”

She gasped as he slid his hand into her pants. “That’s not what I meant,” Fenris whispered. 

Rynne convulsively grabbed his shoulders. “Oh Maker,” she whined. His fingers were stroking her sex, caressing her sensitive folds as his middle finger slipped into the slickness of her cleft to press gently against her clit, and Rynne couldn’t stop herself from rolling her hips toward the heat of his careful hand. 

She released a needy little mewl as Fenris played the pad of his finger across her swollen clit. Then his hand slipped out of her pants, and she gasped in desperation at the abandonment. 

He roughly shoved her pants down, then pushed her down onto the bed and slid her legs apart. His elegant palms were hot on her skin, and his forest-green eyes were fixed on the juncture of her thighs, and when he licked his lips, her already-vibrating excitement surged to a fever pitch. 

“Please,” she blurted. “Fenris, please-” 

He lowered his face without a word, and Rynne cried out as he lavished her sex with a ravenous open-mouthed kiss. She fell bonelessly back onto the mattress and pleadingly lifted her hips, and when Fenris obliged her by firmly slicking his tongue between her legs, she arched toward him with a pleasured cry. 

“Andraste’s sweet fucking tits,” she gasped. 

He lifted his face briefly and looked up at her. “I would hazard a guess that yours are sweeter still.”

She burst out a breathless little laugh. “Fuck’s sake, Fenris, how are you so fucking smooth - oh Maker!” She sobbed in ecstasy as he dropped his lips between her thighs once more and curled his tongue around her clit. 

She writhed and twisted her hips toward his face. It all just felt so fucking _good_ : his hands clasping her hips as he tasted her pussy, and the look of his shoulders looming between her legs, and even the fact that he was fully clothed while she was stark naked was shoving her lust higher still. Rynne was vulnerable and bare, bare of skin and bare of soul, and Fenris was treating her so carefully, lapping at her heated center with such an exquisite touch, and somehow she just knew that the care he was giving to her body was the same care he would lavish on her heart. 

She closed her eyes and spread her legs even wider. The weight of her pleasure was growing, becoming heavier and vibrating with increasing fervour. She clenched her fists in the blankets and held her breath, every scrap of attention focused on the heat and wetness of Fenris’s mouth, and when he finally brought her to her peak, it pulsed through the tips of her fingers and toes with all the crystalline delicacy of a shattering glass of wine.

She arched her back and gasped. “Fenris!” she cried. 

His fingers gripped her hips as he continued to lap at her pussy, and she shuddered beneath him until the sensation was too exquisite to bear. She reached down and stroked his chin, and when he lifted his face, she opened her eyes and looked at him.

She wiped at the sheen on his chin with her thumb. “You take off your fucking clothes now,” she demanded. 

He fixed her with a heated stare, then pushed himself to his feet and started pulling off his jacket, and Rynne shifted to a sitting position to watch him. 

His hands were deliberate and careful as they pulled his jacket off. He neatly lay his jacket on her dressing table, and Rynne bit her lower lip in fascination as she inspected his arms. 

The white lines of his tattoos flowed up his wrists and forearms and into the sleeves of his black T-shirt. With a jolt of interest, she realized that one of her most burning questions about him was about to be answered. 

She watched with heightened anticipation as he lifted his hands to the collar of his black T-shirt. But then he hesitated, and through the roiling storm of her lust, Rynne noticed something odd: he wasn’t looking at her. 

He was frowning slightly, in fact. A pang of concern penetrated the haze of her desire, and she frowned as well. “Fenris, are you okay?”

He met her eyes, and Rynne held her breath. His face was serious again, serious and deeply thoughtful, and she wasn’t really sure why.

She opened her mouth to ask, but in a brisk, rough motion, Fenris fisted his hands in the back of his T-shirt and pulled it over his head. 

Rynne’s eyes widened in shock. His chest - _oh_ , that gorgeous lean muscled chest, the abs, the fucking arms, _Maker’s balls_ \- all of it was covered in intricate white lines, lines that twisted and twined down across the leanness of his waist and into the waistband of his trousers.

It was true, then. The tattoos must cover his entire body. His chest, his arms, his… his thighs…?

A sudden ripple of goosebumps ran down her arms as she realized something. _Holy fuck,_ she thought. She had a tattoo herself, a pattern of twisting black lines that spanned her back from her left shoulder down to her left ribs, and getting that done had hurt like hell. How much would it have hurt for him to get such intricate tattoos across his entire body?

She hauled her gaze back up to his face. His chin was slightly lifted and his expression was completely neutral and… and cold.

Rynne swallowed hard, then gave him a teasing half-smile. “Trying to show me up, are you?” she said playfully. She rose to her knees, then turned around and sank slowly onto her heels as she coyly lifted her tattooed left shoulder.

She glanced at him over her shoulder. He stared at her for a moment, then shook his head and smiled. “I daresay it’s not the same,” he said. “But I’m more fond of yours than I am of mine.” 

His voice was soft and wry, and a little leap of relief peaked in her chest at the hint of humour in his tone. She slid off the bed, then sauntered toward him. “Thank you,” she said. “I’m pretty fond of my tattoo.” She reached for the button-fly of his trousers. 

He breathed in slowly, and Rynne bit her lip in anticipation as his abs tensed against the tips of her fingers. “I… I like yours, as well,” he breathed. 

She smiled impishly at him. “You said that already,” she teased, then dropped to her knees and pulled his trousers down. 

His cock sprang free as his trousers hit the floor, and Rynne eyed the proud rise of his erection with shameless appreciation. _Fuck yes,_ she thought, and she ran her tongue swiftly from the tip of his cock to the base. 

Fenris exhaled heavily, then cupped the nape of her neck as she brushed her lips along his hardened length. “Hawke,” he begged. 

She hummed against his skin as he clumsily kicked off his boots. He smelled so damned good, like soap and leather, and she happily nuzzled his balls as she inhaled his scent.

He groaned, and his fingers slid into her hair. “ _Festis bei umo canavarum,_ ” he breathed. 

She looked up at him curiously. “Ooh. What does _that_ mean?” 

He panted with increasing ardour as she wrapped her fingers around his cock. “It means ‘you will be the death of me’,” he replied, then groaned more insistently as she squeezed his cock. 

She laughed throatily as she stroked his length. “Little deaths, maybe,” she purred, then abruptly took his cock into her mouth.

“ _Ah_ \- Hawke-!” He gasped her name, and his fingers briefly tightened in her hair before going slack and stroking the angle of her jaw. Rynne smiled to herself - not literally, of course, her lips being otherwise occupied - then lifted herself higher on her knees and angled her head to take him deeper. 

He shuddered against her lips, and she splayed her palms on the hardness of his thighs. _Mm_ , he tasted so good, like clean fresh skin and salt, and he smelled so sweet and his cock felt so nice in her throat, and she could only imagine how nice it was going to be to have his steely length pushing inside of her.

She whimpered helplessly around his cock. The tingling feeling of her climax lingered still between her legs, and she could feel the slickness of his mouth and her own desperate desire coating the insides of her thighs, and _fuck_ , she wanted him so fucking badly… 

She suckled his cock more voraciously and dug her fingers into his thighs, and Fenris moaned and stroked his fingers through her hair. “Hawke,” he gasped, “stand up, I - I need to feel you.” 

She nodded eagerly, then released his cock from her greedy lips and rose to her feet. Fenris kicked his pants away, then surged toward her.

She stumbled back in surprise at his sudden approach. He palmed her breast in one hand and ran his other thumb across her lips, and Rynne instinctively darted her tongue out to taste his thumb. 

His own lips fell open as he stared her mouth, and she stared back at him with a fresh surge of mind-numbing excitement as his expression twisted into something fierce and hot. He grabbed her hip and pushed her back toward the bed, and suddenly she was on her back, and Fenris was between her legs and half-crawling, half-lifting her higher on the mattress. 

She hastily reached over to the bedside table and pulled a condom out of the drawer, and Fenris grabbed it gracelessly from her hand. Then he was kissing her and cradling her neck in the heat of his palm, and Rynne snatched the condom back from him and rolled it onto his length with shaking hands, and then - _fuck_ , and then his cock was sliding between her legs, sliding teasingly along the length of her cleft and caressing her clit.

Rynne was lost. She was helpless, floating beneath the heat of his body as he rubbed himself against her and stroked his tongue into her mouth, and - 

“Oh fuck,” she gasped. Her eyes flew open, and she stared at his face as he carefully pressed the head of his cock against her entrance. His eyes were wide and fixed on hers, his eyebrows tilted in an expression just as desperate and wanting as the look she was sure was on her face.

She tilted her chin up pleadingly and curled her hips toward him. “Kiss me,” she begged. 

He cradled her cheek in his palm. “As you wish,” he murmured. Slowly, so torturously slowly, he lowered his face to hers. 

His lips brushed across her own as he slid his cock _slowly_ inside of her, and Rynne moaned shamelessly into his mouth as he stretched and filled her up bit by bit. He groaned into her open lips as he sheathed himself inside of her, and then they were breathing and moving together, his pleasured breaths keeping her afloat as she lifted her hips to meet his every careful thrust. 

He fucked her slow and hard, his every thrust seeming to reach so deep inside of her that she couldn’t help but moan into his panting mouth. She was wrapped in his arms, his one hand in her hair and the other beneath her back, and the wiry strength of his shoulders beneath her roaming palms was so damned precious…

No, everything about this moment was precious. As Fenris moved inside of her and gasped his pleasure against her lips, Rynne realized just how badly she’d wanted this. This was not just an act of sex, an expulsion of desire and hedonistic want. Their bodies were close, pressed together in the most intimate way that two bodies could be joined, but she felt… _Maker’s balls,_ she felt more close to Fenris than she had to any other partner in the past. This carnal act, this crashing of pleasure and lust and twisting bodies, it was so much more than anything she’d ever had before. Here in this bed with this dark and impassioned man looming over her, she somehow felt more filled than she’d ever been. 

Her heart was beating so hard. She wondered if Fenris could feel it through her skin. She wondered if he could hear it through her ribs. Then he lifted himself onto his elbows, and the rhythm of his hips began to slow.

Rynne opened her eyes, and for the umpteenth time, her breath stalled in her chest. Fenris was gazing down at her so intently. In the cozy half-light of her bedside lamp, his brilliant eyes were so clear and bright and transparent, and she fancied that she could practically see herself reflected in his eyes. 

“I knew it,” she said. 

“Knew what?” he breathed. He moved inside of her once more.

She arched into his body with a gasp as he thrust into her again. “I knew you saw me,” she moaned. 

His hips grew still once more. “What do you mean?”

Rynne wiggled her hips pleadingly. Fenris followed her cue with another long, slow thrust, and she gripped his arms and moaned. 

“When you were being a dick the other day,” she breathlessly explained. “You - I knew you didn’t mean it. You’re just used to being on your own. I knew that was why.”

He breathed heavily and didn’t reply, then groaned as she lifted her hips to meet his cock. “Hawke,” he panted, “I never… I did not think I needed anyone, or wanted anyone. Until now.” 

A bloom of happiness unfurled in her belly, lifting her pleasure to an even greater height than it already was. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down so his chest was flush to hers. “Everyone needs someone,” she whispered. “For what it’s worth, that’s how I feel about you.” 

Fenris breathed slowly through his lips. His eyes were squeezed shut, and Rynne slowly tilted her chin up to brush his lips with hers. 

“Enough talk. Now fuck me hard,” she whispered. 

He opened his eyes. She could feel his breathing growing deep and fast beneath her arms. Then he lifted his hips and slammed himself deep. 

She threw her head back into the pillows. “Fuck!” she cried. 

His arms snaked beneath her again, and he thrust into her hard once more, and then he was fucking her so hard and fast that she could barely be bothered to breathe. 

She sank her nails into his shoulder blades, and he gasped and bit the junction of her shoulder and her neck, and Rynne cried out again. His arms were so tight around her, and his cock was so fucking hard and smooth as it stroked her pleasure forth, and when he suddenly cried out and bit her shoulder _hard_ , she released his name to the ceiling in a praise-filled cry. 

Fenris shuddered against her chest, his arms tensing even more tightly around her body as he whimpered into her skin, and Rynne released a breathy little laugh. 

His body gradually stilled, and he slowly lifted his mouth from her shoulder. “I hope that is a good laugh,” he said. 

She grinned as he lifted himself from her body, then flopped onto his side beside her. “It definitely is,” she assured him. “If it was a bad laugh, you would know. Everyone in this house would know.” 

Fenris scoffed, then stroked her hip as she rolled onto her side to face him. “I suppose I will take that as a compliment,” he said. 

She grinned at him, then reached down to remove his condom. “You definitely should,” she said. She tied the condom off and casually tossed it beside the bed. 

He chuckled and shook his head at her careless actions, and Rynne smiled as she snuggled closer to him. “So. Now what?” she whispered. 

His stroking hand grew still for a moment, then slid up her back to caress the back of her neck. His smiling face grew pensive, and Rynne fell quiet as she studied his face in return. 

_He’s perfect,_ she thought. However much of an accident it had been for her to admit it, the words she’d told him on the balcony during the party were true: he _was_ perfect, perfect in all his multifaceted glory. He was beautiful and gruff, thoughtful and snappish, smart as hell and generous in bed, and… 

_No. Don’t go there,_ she thought. It was too soon to think she loved him. Definitely way too soon to say it. 

She nibbled her lip and traced his pointed ear with her fingers. Then he carefully tucked a tuft of hair behind her ear. “Roll over,” he whispered. 

She smiled and obeyed his request, and her smile grew wider still as he shuffled closer to her and wrapped his arm around her waist. His chest was hot against her back and his breath was warm on her neck, and as she drifted off to sleep blanketed in the heat of his body, her last thought was that this had been the best night of her life. 

But when Rynne woke the next morning, Fenris was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DON'T DESPAIR, OK? Everything will be all right in the end. If it is not all right, it is not yet the end. (At least for FenRynne. Ignore my sad-sack Solas and Abelas fics ok, they don't count.)
> 
> Fun fact: this was the first time I've written a sex scene with a condom involved! Usually I rely on good ol' magic contraception or 'moon herbs' and magic healing for STIs etc etc, but hey, modern AUs call for modern methods. 
> 
> [I am Pikapeppa](https://pikapeppa.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr. Come hang out if you like! xo


	7. Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beware the angst :(

_8:52am - hey so_  
_8:52am - you just went to get coffee right?_  
_8:52am - bc you should know i dont like it lol_  
_8:52am - chai for me plz~_

_10:11am - seriously though are you coming back?_

_1:08pm - honestly what the fuck_  
_1:08pm - i didn't take YOU for a fuckboy_  
_1:09pm - i mean i’m an idiot but i didn’t think i was that stupid_

_1:35pm - i take that back_  
_1:35pm - i just realized you might have gotten hit by a car or sth_  
_1:36pm - which i RELLY hope didn’t happen_  
_1:36pm - really***_  
_1:36pm - just let me know if you need blood bc i’m a universal donor lol_

_2:46pm - Fenris. please. just talk to me_

Rynne tossed her phone on the coffee table and dragged her hands through her hair, then nervously patted it back into place. She picked up the half-eaten piece of toast she’d made this morning and took a bite, then listlessly rose from the couch and carried the cold toast back to the kitchen to throw it out.

She just couldn’t understand it. Fenris was so wonderful last night, sexy and slow and attentive, holding her close until she fell asleep. And the _words_ he’d said, those gorgeous tender words that he’d poured in her ear…

Rynne couldn’t reconcile _that_ man with the one who had left her alone at some unspecified hour of the morning and who was now ghosting her so brutally. 

She flicked the kettle on and toyed idly with her earrings as she waited for it to boil. Then, unable to resist the horrible temptation, she went back to the living room and picked up her phone. 

She tapped into her messages and stared at the increasingly desperate string of unanswered texts she’d sent to him, then closed the app and slumped onto the couch. She really wished someone else was home right now. Rynne had never been particularly good at sitting alone with her feelings, and the feelings she was having now… Maker’s balls, they were fucking painful. It felt like a cold, heavy rock had been shoved right behind her sternum, and she could _really_ use a friendly distraction.

 _Maybe he really did just get held up,_ she thought. _Ran into someone he knew in Lowtown, or… or got arrested for being too sexy, or…_ Shit, she was really grasping at straws here to find an excuse for him. Any complicated excuse would do, because any excuse was better than the simple and likely truth.

_It was a one-night stand. He doesn’t really want you._

She tugged at her ear until it started to hurt. Then she heard the _click_ of the kettle turning off. She rose to her feet and went to pour herself some tea, but before she could do more than pick out a teabag, the intercom chimed.

Rynne dropped the teabag and ran to the intercom, then slammed her finger on the button. “Hello?”

There was a brief moment of silence, then his voice grumbled through the speaker. “Hawke? It’s… it’s me.”

“Come on up,” she replied, and she hit the buzzer. “Thank fuck,” she exclaimed out loud to the empty condo, then she ran to the bathroom to make sure she didn’t look as much of a wreck as she felt. 

A minute later, the doorbell rang, and Rynne pulled open the door.

Fenris was frowning. 

Her stomach instantly plummeted. _Fuck,_ she thought. She laughed nervously as she let him in. “You’re just in time!” she said. “I was making tea. I’m glad you’re not dead, by the way. I was about to call the emergency room at Andraste General and see if the most handsome man in Thedas happened to have been admitted-” 

“Hawke,” he said quietly. 

She froze for a moment at the gravity of his tone, then breezed into the kitchen. “Do you want tea?” she asked. “Or maybe coffee instead? You take it black with a little sugar, right?”

“That’s - yes, that’s right. But no thank you. Hawke-”

She looked up at him with an empty mug in her hands. “You sure? It’s no trouble. I can make approximately five things in the kitchen and coffee is one of-”

He placed one tattooed palm on the kitchen counter. “Hawke, I… I cannot do this. It should never have happened in the first place. Forgive me.”

She stared at him dumbly, unable to breathe around the foolish hopes that were clogging her lungs and her throat. 

Finally she drew a painful breath peeled her tongue from the roof of her mouth. “You came back here just to tell me that? That this is over?” 

He tucked his hand back into his pocket and took a small step back. “Yes. I’m sorry-” 

“Bullshit,” she exclaimed. “I don’t believe you.” She put the mug down and made her way around the kitchen counter to approach him.

He backed away from her with his hands in his pockets, and Rynne tried hard to ignore the fresh lance of hurt that speared her in the chest. She took another deep breath and folded her arms. “Come on, Fenris, what’s really going on here?”

“Nothing is going on,” he said. “I was drunk. We both were. It was a mistake, and it cannot happen again.”

A painful lump appeared in her throat, but she swallowed it down. His words were classic brush-off fuckboy fodder, and if Piper were here, she would have cheerfully told him to fuck off and take his tiny prick with him. 

But Pipes wasn’t here. And somehow, for some reason, Rynne didn’t believe that Fenris was just using her for sex. She might be an overly optimistic idiot, but the things he’d said last night were still ringing in her ears.

 _I didn’t think I needed anyone or wanted anyone. Until now._ Fenris didn’t speak idle words, and he wasn’t the kind of man who would say such things lightly. Rynne would never forget it, and she was absolutely certain he hadn’t forgotten it either.

“Alcohol is no excuse,” she said, as matter-of-factly as she could. “By the time you had me naked, you weren’t drunk anymore. And I wasn’t either.” She peered at him. “You can talk to me without blowing me off, you know. Listening and fucking aren’t mutually exclusive.” 

His expression crumpled with discomfort as she spoke. He scratched the back of his neck and darted a glance at the door, and Rynne held her breath as she waited for him to respond. Maybe she’d come on too strong. Was this going to drive him away for good?

Finally he blew out a breath and rubbed a hand over his snowy hair. “Are we alone?” he asked. 

She relaxed slightly. That was a good sign. “Yes, it’s just us,” she said. “What’s going on?”

He gripped his hair for a moment longer, then lifted his gaze to her face. “I have not been entirely honest with you,” he said. “I… I have not left the world of Tevinter crime behind.” 

A jolt of horror made her widen her eyes. “Y-you mean… you’re still working as a-?”

“No,” Fenris said hastily. “No, it is not that. I…” He sighed and seated himself gingerly on the arm of the couch. “I didn’t come to Kirkwall to start a new life. I came here to bide my time.”

She took a tentative step closer to him. “What does that mean?”

“I was... well-known, shall we say, in the more disreputable circles in Tevinter,” he said slowly. “My departure was not as tidy as I made it sound. Danarius has not stopped hunting me. And I will _not_ be hounded by him any longer.” 

His expression was cold and fierce. Rynne took a deep breath. Her chest was jangling with anxiety at what he was implying, but she needed him to spell it out. 

She rubbed her chilly arms. “What exactly does that mean?” she whispered. 

Fenris continued to gaze steadily at her. “It means that I will kill him,” he said baldly. “When the time is right, I will lure Danarius out of Tevinter, and I will kill him, and any men he brings along with him.” 

Rynne gaped at him, speechless and dumb with shock at the starkness of his words. Perhaps she shouldn’t be so shocked; he had told her he’d worked as an enforcer, after all. But somehow, Rynne hadn’t really _seen_ it. 

This wasn’t to say she didn’t believe him. She absolutely believed he was capable of incapacitating someone who deserved it. She would never forget the sight of him holding his knife to the throat of that guy who’s attacked her behind the Hanged Man. But somehow, in her naive little mind, she’d managed to separate that cold, brutal fighter from the smart, smirking, sympathetic man who worked with her at the pub.

 _Multifaceted indeed,_ she thought numbly. He was intelligent, well-spoken, polite… and a self-proclaimed killer who was planning to kill more people still. 

She realized her silence had stretched on too long when Fenris nodded sharply and rose from the couch. “You understand the problem,” he said. “This… liaison can go no further. There is no future for you in all of this.” 

He took a purposeful step toward the door. Before she could stop to think, Rynne darted in front of him. “Why don’t you just _not_ kill Danarius?” she blurted.

He stared at her as though she’d said something absurd. “What?” 

“Don’t kill him,” Rynne said urgently. “Just go on with your life. You know what they say: the best revenge is a life well lived.”

Fenris scowled. “Spoken like a person who has never been truly wronged,” he said acidly. “I will not wait passively to be found. There always comes a time when you must stop running - when you turn and face the tiger.” 

“And there are times when you have to reconsider your plans so you don’t go to jail!” Rynne exclaimed. “What in the Void are you thinking will happen after you kill Danarius?” 

Fenris shrugged and glanced at the door. “It doesn’t matter. I will be gone by then.” 

Rynne raised her eyebrows. “So after you… after you carry out this plan of yours, you’re just going to leave. That’s it?”

Fenris finally seemed to lose his patience: he glared at her so fiercely that she took an instinctive step away from him. “Yes,” he snapped. “When this is done, I will leave this place and I will be satisfied that I’ve removed at least a scrap of miserable darkness from this world.”

Rynne’s heart was beating an anxious rhythm in her throat. She’d never seen him look so angry. She reached tremulously for his hand. “Fenris-”

He jerked his hand away from her touch. “You don’t understand,” he hissed. “You don’t know what they’ve done to me. The duplicity and the tattoos, the - the lyrium and the fucking _lies_ -”

Rynne took a step forward and boldly grabbed his hand. He tried to pull away, but she squeezed his hand firmly in both of hers. “Fenris,” she said breathlessly, “I want to understand. Just - help me understa-”

“They set me up, all right?” he shouted. “I attempted to leave when they tried to bring Varania into the business. Danarius said one last job, and I would be free. But they set me up. Beat me to within an inch of my life, killed my mother and my sister, and told me it was a rival gang who did the job. I couldn’t remember what had happened, so I believed them.”

His fingers were cold and clenched, and Rynne’s chest felt just as clenched, tight with an aching and horrified sympathy. “And the tattoos?” she whispered. 

He bowed his head and ran his free hand through his hair. “When I healed from my wounds, they… encouraged me to get the tattoos. Show my fealty to Danarius. And I agreed. I thought I had nothing left to live for, with my family dead and gone. And…” He swallowed hard, then lifted his face once more, and Rynne’s throat swelled at the distress in his face.

“I asked for lyrium,” he rasped. “While the tattoos were healing. I requested it. I… I demanded it.” 

“Oh, Fenris,” Rynne breathed. She squeezed his forearm, then reached up and cradled his neck. “It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t ask for any of this-” 

He reached up and pulled her hands away. “Are you not listening?” he demanded. “I _asked_ for lyrium. I begged them to rub that filthy salve on my skin while the tattoos were healing. Then the salve became the shots, and…” He rubbed his face tiredly. “I was addicted to it for years, Hawke. That was a curse of my own making.”

Rynne frowned. He’d become an addict via lyrium salve? That didn’t seem right. Rynne wasn’t a doctor by any means, but she knew quite a bit about how lyrium was absorbed, and lyrium salve was the least potent form. It could even be used on children in small doses. 

But this didn’t seem the time to point it out. And Fenris wasn’t finished talking. “You are right about one thing,” he said. “This is not entirely my fault. It’s Danarius’s fault: Danarius and his entire snivelling, power-hungry clan of criminals. And I won’t find a moment’s peace until he is dead.” 

Rynne forced herself to breathe calmly. All this talk of death, of Fenris killing someone, and the thought of him getting caught and locked away for something that could so easily be avoided… It was almost enough to make her panic. 

She forced another careful inhale. “How long has it been since you were in Tevinter?” she asked. 

His scowl lessened somewhat. “Two years and nine months, give or take. Why do you ask?”

“And you’ve been running from Danarius ever since?” she asked.

He narrowed his eyes. “Yes. Why else do you think I only just arrived in Kirkwall?”

Rynne took a deep breath. This next question was crucial. “Did you ever… did you kill any of his people in that time?”

“No,” he said tersely. “I avoided them. I have been _trying_ to keep a low profile, as you well know.”

His response was accusatory, but Rynne didn’t mind; she released a little sigh of relief. “So let’s go to the police,” she said. “The Kirkwall police are very fair. Aveline Vallen, the police captain, she’s a friend - not that that would make her go easy on anyone or anything, she’s so scrupulous it’s nearly annoying, but - and Cullen! Cullen would absolutely be willing to help. We can just-”

“No,” Fenris said loudly. “No police, and no lawyers. I will - this is not your problem.” He edged around her and moved toward the door. “I have already told you far more than you should know. I will deal with this on my own.” 

Rynne planted herself firmly in front of the door. “Fenris, you can’t do this,” she said desperately. “It’s too dangerous, and if you get caught-”

He took an angry step closer to her. “And what would you have me do?” he snarled. “Hawke, I have never had the option to simply walk away. They _chased_ me every step of the way. I’ve settled nowhere for longer than five months. Am I supposed to forgive, no matter how many times they hunt me down? Am I supposed to forget all the things they’ve done to me?” 

“That’s not what I’m suggesting,” Rynne retorted. She tried hard to keep the tremor from her voice. “I’m just saying you don’t _have_ to kill him! There has to be another way to make them get what they-”

“Stop trying to change my mind!” he shouted suddenly. “You don’t know what it is to live under the weight of such ghosts!” 

Rynne snapped her mouth shut and raised her eyebrows. After what she’d told him, what he knew about her life, he was going to tell her she knew nothing about living with ghosts?

Fenris glared at her for a moment, but his expression seemed to melt as he stared at her face. He scraped his hands through his hair. “I do not mean that,” he said quietly. “I… that was thoughtless of me. It was not my intention to minimize-”

“There has to be something else we can do,” Rynne interrupted. Her throat was aching from his verbal onslaught, but that wasn’t important now. Stopping him from committing murder was more important than her hurt feelings. “You talk like you don’t have a choice, but you do. You don’t have to be the guy who - who kills people to solve problems,” she insisted. She reached out and gently squeezed his bicep. “You’re more than just the most handsome enforcer the Tevinter mob ever had,” she said, with a tiny hopeful smile. “You aren’t that person anymore. I know that can’t be what you want.”

He gazed at her in silence, and the softness in his eyes made her heart beat with hope.

Then his words dashed it all away. “You’re wrong,” he said softly. “There is nothing I want more than to see Danarius dead.” 

His gently spoken words were like a punch to her gut. Rynne stared at him with rising misery, at his savage and beautiful face with those brilliant green eyes of his, and the way they seemed to shine more brightly than usual. 

He dropped his gaze and peeled her fingers from his arm, then carefully pushed her away from the door. 

“Don’t go,” she blurted. She impatiently wiped a stupid, desperate tear from her cheek. “Please don’t go.”

He opened the door, then turned back to face her once more. “If you decide to go to the police-” 

“I’m not going to the fucking police behind your back,” Rynne interrupted. She reached for him again. “Fenris, please…”

He pulled away and put his hands in his pockets. “If you do, I would not blame you. You did not ask to get involved in this. I would ask only that you tell me when you do. Give me a head start, at the very least.” 

She shook her head and wiped her face. She could feel her face getting puffy and swollen already. “I’m not going to the police,” she repeated fiercely. “I’m not going anywhere, okay? When you come to your fucking senses, I’m going to be right here.” 

Fenris stared at her for a moment longer. Then he pulled up his hood and left.

Rynne stepped into the doorway and watched as he strode toward the elevator with his shoulders hunched and his hands hidden in his pockets. He stepped into the elevator without looking back. 

Once he was gone, Rynne went back inside. She closed the door quietly behind her, then went to the kitchen and turned the kettle on. She stood frozen in the kitchen while the kettle boiled, and when the switch flicked off, she picked up her abandoned teabag and her abandoned mug and poured the water over the tea. 

She leaned woodenly against the counter and waited dumbly for the tea to steep. Then she heard the _click_ of the front door lock.

“Hey bitches! Anybody home?” Piper’s chipper voice drifted into the condo, followed a moment later by Piper herself. Her tattooed face was wreathed in a smile, but it disappeared instantly when she stepped into the kitchen.

Piper dropped her phone and her backpack on the kitchen counter and grabbed Rynne’s arm. “What’s wrong?” she demanded. 

Rynne looked at her. “Do you want to watch _The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo_ with me?”

Piper’s face fell even more. “Oh fuck. What did he do?” She glared toward the living room as though Fenris might be hiding there. “Where is he? I’ll shank him. I’ll cut him a new asshole if you want.” 

Rynne laughed. The sentiment would have made her laugh no matter what, but the irony of it - the idea of anyone trying to cut Fenris, knowing now what Rynne knew of his past…

She snorted with amusement, and a hot tear rolled down her cheek. She wiped it away and burst out another hysterical snicker, and all of a sudden she was crying, crying like a fucking baby, and all she could hope was that her face wouldn’t be all ugly and swollen by the time they had to go to work tonight.

Piper’s wiry little arms wrapped tightly around her shoulders, and Rynne sobbed grossly into Piper’s wild mass of hair. Within minutes, Piper had her ensconced on the couch with a cup of tea in her hands and a warm throw blanket wrapped around her shoulders, and _The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo_ was playing while Piper cheerfully suggested fast-forwarding to the bit where Lisbeth got her revenge on the vile corrupt caseworker. 

Rynne leaned her head on Piper’s shoulder as Piper offered her a bag of popcorn and chattered happily about doing a David Fincher movie marathon tomorrow. _I love you,_ Rynne thought fondly to her friend. 

If only love was always so easy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter to come tonight or tomorrow!
> 
> I'm [Pikapeppa on Tumblr,](https://pikapeppa.tumblr.com/) if anyone wants to come hang out. xo


	8. Family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Moar angst. SORRY :( but also some fluff!  
> Note: in this AU, there is no Bethany. I just couldn't find a place for her in this particular AU, especially given the circumstances of her death in the canon story.

Rynne unlocked the door to her mother’s house and stepped inside. “Mom?”

“Back here, love!” Leandra’s voice floated into the foyer, and Rynne followed it back into the living room.

Leandra was sitting on the couch with her tablet on her lap. She looked up with a smile as Rynne approached. “You came!” she said warmly. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages.”

Rynne swallowed down an instinctive surge of annoyance. _Why_ her mother always had to make it sound like she never showed up when she said she would, Rynne didn’t know. 

She purposely forced herself not to look at the mess of dishes and papers on the coffee table. “Hi, Mom,” she said. She kissed her mother on the cheek, then glanced at her tablet. “What are you doing there?”

Leandra sighed and jabbed at her tablet. “I’m trying to send an email to your uncle. But I can’t get the silly thing to load.”

“That’s because your wifi doesn’t work half the time,” Rynne said patiently. “I’ll give them a call today.” She started gathering the dishes on the coffee table.

Leandra slid her feet from the couch onto the ground. “Oh, love, let me do that.”

“No, it’s all right, I’ve got it,” Rynne said. Her mother would say she was going to clean, and then she wouldn’t, and the next time Rynne came over, she’d give her an earful of snide remarks about how difficult it was to keep such a big house clean all on her own… 

Rynne pressed her lips together hard. _It’s fine,_ she told herself, just as she always did. _Mom isn’t well, she’s still grieving, it’s fine._ No matter that Carver didn’t get half the guilt trip that Rynne did about not coming home more often. Rynne supposed this was her due for being the eldest, as well as the one who had taken Malcolm away from her mother. 

She carried the stack of dishes to the kitchen, and Leandra followed her. “When will you call the wifi people?” Leandra asked. 

Rynne piled the dishes into the sink, then opened the dishwasher… which was still full of clean dishes. She sighed very quietly and started unpacking them. “As soon as I’m done with this,” she said. 

Leandra folded her arms. “Rynne, love, just let me do that. Then you can do the wifi.” She sat at the kitchen table and started toying with an envelope from the stack of mail that sat there. “You don’t need to fuss and cluck around me like a mother hen.”

 _Yes I do,_ Rynne thought, with an unwelcome surge of resentment. Leandra had always enjoyed being fussed over. When Malcolm was alive and well, it was his shtick to fuss around his wife; ‘my Princess Amell’, he used to call her. And it was a cute routine, or at least Rynne had thought so when she was a child. 

But as she got older, she started to notice how much her mother relied on Malcolm to do every little task, and how flustered she got when things didn’t go right. When Malcolm got sick, Rynne realized the full extent of her mother’s dependency: she didn’t work, didn’t pay the bills, and didn’t arrange the utilities or car insurance or _any_ insurance of any type. As Malcolm’s condition worsened, her mother stopped helping with household chores or cooking. 

So Rynne had taken over managing the family. And to her own blame, she’d never told Carver about the weight of the burdens she’d borne. She’d done the exact same thing to Carver that Malcolm had done to her mom: shielded him from the full ugly extent of reality by managing everything behind the scenes without telling him how bad it was. 

Rynne turned and smiled at her mom. “I’m not fussing. I’m just keeping my hands busy. I’ll be finished in just a few minutes.” She picked up her pace and started unpacking the dishwasher more quickly. 

Leandra, meanwhile, had settled herself comfortably at the kitchen table and was flipping idly through a grocery store flyer. “Carver mentioned you had a party last weekend,” she said.

Rynne felt a little wriggle of guilt at this statement. She supposed she could have invited Carver to the party, but he always got annoyed at her every time she saw him. It wasn’t Rynne’s fault she’d inherited all the humour genes in the family. 

“Yes,” Rynne confirmed. “Do you want to see some photos? Isabela’s wearing a _very_ interesting dress.”

Leandra perked up. “Ooh, yes. That would be lovely!” 

Rynne smiled more genuinely at her mother’s enthusiasm. Leandra had always been endearingly interested in the hijinks of Rynne’s famous friend. She dug her cell phone from her pocket and flicked through to the album with the party photos. 

She handed her cell to her mother and returned to the dishes. “We had a great time. Isabela just got back from a film shoot and Merrill was out of town for a while, so it was the-”

Leandra interrupted her. “Who is this boy you’re with?” she said. “This elf?”

Rynne took a slow, measured breath through her nose. One of the photos she’d taken was a selfie of herself and Fenris - an extremely cute selfie, if she said so herself. Rynne was grinning like a fool, and Fenris was frowning, and right after she’d taken the photo, Fenris had taken one look at it and started laughing. 

Rynne loved that selfie. She loved how much it seemed to amuse him. And now, a week after he’d essentially dumped her, looking at that selfie made her heart ache, but she couldn’t bring herself to delete it from her phone. 

She exhaled calmly. “That’s Fenris,” she said. “He works with me and Pipes. He’s a bouncer at the pub.”

Leandra tutted. “You seem very cozy.”

Rynne frowned. What kind of odd remark was that? “It’s not like that,” Rynne said. “We’re… we work together, that’s all.” 

“Oh. Good,” Leandra said. 

Rynne paused in her cleaning, then stood up and reached for her phone. “Mother, what is that supposed to mean?”

Leandra shot her an annoyed look as she handed back the phone. “An elven bouncer, Rynne? I would hope you know better than that.”

Rynne recoiled and raised her eyebrows. “And if he was a human bouncer, that would be all right?”

Leandra tutted more loudly and folded her arms. “Don’t make me sound like a racist, darling. You know how fond I am of Piper and that little Merrill.” 

“Uh-huh. Just not if I was dating them, right?” Rynne drawled.

Leandra narrowed her eyes shrewdly. “So you _are_ dating this elf, then?”

Rynne _tsk_ ed in disgust, then abandoned the sink full of dishes and strode back into the living room. “Where’s the phone? I’m going to call the bloody wifi people.”

“Don’t curse,” Leandra said primly. “It’s in the living room.”

“Where in the living room?” Rynne called impatiently. “It’s never on the charging thingy where it’s supposed to be.”

A moment later, Leandra appeared in the doorway with a wounded expression. “Why are you speaking to me like this?” she said plaintively. “You’re being very short with me.”

“I’m not-” Rynne stopped and bit her tongue, then started again in a less defensive tone. “I don’t mean to be,” she said. “It’s just been a long week.” _Long week_ felt like the understatement of the century. Every night at work had been a special kind of torture. She’d shown up each night half-expecting to find out that Fenris had skipped town, and seeing his looming stride as he walked through the door was both a relief and a painful bolt to the chest. She’d spoken to him as normally as possible despite his taciturn mien, even going so far as to flirt with him for the sake of normalcy, and he’d been perfectly polite in return - polite and so _distant_ that it fucking hurt.

Rynne shoved the thoughts aside and forced her face into a pleasant expression. “I’m sorry, Mom. Do you know where the phone is in this room?”

“Of course,” Leandra said. She came into the room and started digging around in the couch cushions. 

Rynne watched with a slowly withering patience as her mom slowly shifted blankets and papers and books around the room. Then she heard the creak of the front door opening.

“Mom?” Carver’s voice drifted into the house, and Rynne raised her eyebrows in surprise. It was the middle of the day. Didn’t he have to work? 

She wandered into the foyer. “Hey, Carv. What are you doing here?”

He raised his eyebrows, apparently equally surprised to see her. “Rynne!” He hung his coat and stepped into the foyer, then awkwardly submitted to her hug. “Mom said she wasn’t sure you would be coming today.”

“That’s odd,” Rynne said lightly. “Because I told her last night that I would.”

Leandra breezed into the foyer with the house phone in her hand. She gave the phone to Rynne while kissing Carver on the cheek. “Hello, love. Can you take care of the dishes? Rynne was too busy to finish them.”

Carver raised an accusatory eyebrow, and Rynne momentarily sank into a very fond fantasy of bashing herself repeatedly in the face with the phone. She gave Carver a sweet smile. “I’m going to call the internet company,” she told him. Then she returned to the living room without waiting for a response. 

She could hear her mother talking to Carver, something about ‘cheeky attitude’ and ‘another mess with another boy’. She scowled as she pulled up the internet provider’s contact info on her cell, then punched the number into the house phone with a little more force than was strictly necessary.

As always when contacting any internet provider, the conversation was a test in patience. The customer service rep kept asking to speak to the original cardholder on the account, and when Rynne had explained for the third time that Malcolm was dead, but that she had the credit card on file right in front of her, the rep insisted that there was nothing she could do.

“Fine,” Rynne snapped. “Then it looks like there’s nothing I can do but cancel my service with your company and go to one of your competitors instead. Have a lovely fucking day.” She ended the call abruptly, then looked up to find Leandra and Carver watching her. 

She grimaced at them. “So, the bad news…”

Leandra sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “ _Rynne._ ” 

Rynne shrugged helplessly. “Look, I tried! There’s only so much I can do about a terrible case of the stupids.” She pulled out her cell and flicked open her browser. “Carv, what service provider do you use? Isabela’s is great but it’s pretty expensive.”

“I use the same one that Dad used here,” Carver said. 

Rynne looked up at her brother. “Seriously? Well, shit.”

“Language,” Leandra snapped. 

_Maker give me fucking patience,_ Rynne thought. She exhaled slowly and faced her family with a pleasant look on her face. “They wouldn’t let me make any changes to the account or even lodge a complaint without speaking to Dad,” she said. “I told them he’d passed away, and it was like they didn’t hear me. You’d think I was trying to trick them or something.” 

Leandra pursed her lips. “Unfortunate that your father is no longer with us, then.”

Rynne froze. _Don’t rise,_ she told herself. _Don’t rise to it, just let it lie._ Leandra made comments like this every time Rynne saw her. It was nothing new, just part of the dynamic that Rynne had gotten used to in the two years or so since Malcolm had died, it was no big deal-

Her mouth opened of its own accord. “Is there something you want to say, Mother? No need to dance around your words. Just say what you want to say.” 

Carver’s eyes widened. “Rynne,” he said warningly. 

Rynne waved at him. “No, it’s okay,” she said brightly. “Let her speak. She clearly has thoughts. She should let them out. She’ll just give herself ulcers otherwise.” At the back of Rynne’s mind, there was a small logical voice screaming at her to shut the fuck up and not invite this conversation, but for some reckless reason, she couldn’t cope with her mom’s bullshit tonight. Was she being self-destructive? Was this actually a healthy thing to do, like lancing a festering wound? Rynne honestly couldn’t decide, but regardless of the reasons, she was rushing straight into this shitstorm with the speed of an Orlesian bullet train. 

Leandra’s lips were pursed into a thin white line. She shook her head. “You are being so rude. I don’t know what’s gotten into you.”

“Maybe I’m just sick of the snide remarks and the veiled comments,” Rynne said pleasantly. “Feel free to be direct. I’d welcome it. I’ll take a punch to the stomach over a knife to the back any day.”

“Maker’s breath, you’re being so dramatic,” Carver complained. But to Rynne’s surprise, Leandra spoke up. 

“Fine,” she snapped. She glared at Rynne. “Fine. Here is what I think. If your father was still with us, he’d be able to clear this mess up easily.” She turned to Carver plaintively. “He was so charming, your father,” she lamented. “He could talk anyone into anything. Unlike some ungrateful children,” she added pointedly. 

Rynne held up one hand. “Hang on a minute. You think Dad would still be with us now if he hadn’t taken the lyrium?” she said incredulously.

“He lasted longer than the doctors thought he would!” Leandra snapped. “You don’t know how much longer-”

“Mom,” Rynne said loudly. “The palliative care doctors gave him less than six months. Even if he’d died by suffering in pain the way _you_ wanted him to go, he’d still be dead by now.”

“Rynne, shut up,” Carver snapped. 

“No!” Rynne retorted. “She’s being so unreasonable! It was either six months of horrible pain, or - or-”

“Or what?” Leandra shouted. “Answer me that, Rynne. Or what? Six months more time with us, or _you_ killing him? Because we both know what you chose!” 

“Mom!” Carver hissed.

Rynne rubbed her face roughly. It was on the tip of her tongue to say her mom was right - to just confess the secret she’d been holding back from them for years. But she forced herself to bite it back. Telling them the truth now would be a terrible idea, given the mood her mother was in. Furthermore, she didn’t want to make Cullen’s hard work go to waste. 

She took a deep breath. “Dying by lyrium was Dad’s choice,” she said firmly. “He deserved to die in comfort.”

“Well, it’s a good thing he had _you_ there to help him, then,” Leandra snapped. She delicately wiped a tear from her cheek. “I hope you enjoyed your last moments with him. I hope you said enough goodbyes to him for all of us.” Then she sobbed and pressed her fist to her mouth.

Rynne bit the inside of her cheek. At the very end, right before Rynne had emptied that final syringe into his IV, Malcolm had made only one request: _Take care of your mother._

It looked like Rynne was letting him down, too. 

Leandra sobbed again and pressed her face to Carver’s chest, and Carver gently patted her back. “I think you should go,” he said to Rynne. 

Rynne rubbed a hand through her hair, then cleared her throat. “Uh, yeah. Of course,” she said. She rubbed her nose, then glanced at her mother. 

Leandra’s face was buried in Carver’s shoulder. Rynne swallowed hard, then took a step away from them. “I’ll set you up with a new wifi provider later,” she said. “I’ll, um… I’ll put it on my card.” 

Leandra ignored her. Rynne took one last look at Carver - long enough to take in the disapproving look on his face - and then she left the house. 

********************

Fenris turned the page of the book Varric had lent him. It took a good ten seconds before he realized that he hadn’t absorbed anything on the previous page. 

He sighed and slumped down in his chair. He was finding it so damned difficult to concentrate these days. 

It was Hawke’s fault. Ever since that conversation they’d had at her condo, that blasted conversation where he’d stupidly told her every sordid detail of his past, he couldn’t stop thinking about what she’d said. 

She was wrong, of course. Suggesting he go to the police was completely laughable, and not only because Fenris was a self-admitted criminal himself, albeit one who had never been formally charged. Hawke was naive and overly optimistic. There was no justice to be found for the wrongs that someone like Danarius had wrought. The only justice that a man like Danarius deserved was the kind that was found at the end of a smoking gun, and only Fenris could be certain that this justice would be served.

But the thing that galled him the most was Hawke’s suggestion that this wasn’t what he wanted. Of course he wanted to kill Danarius. Killing Danarius was the only objective that had kept Fenris moving ever since he’d left the Imperium. Seeing Danarius dead was the only thing that he’d wanted for years. 

_But that isn’t true anymore,_ a little voice whispered in his mind. 

A memory of Hawke’s smiling face floated across his mind: that soft, heated smile she’d had as they lay face-to-face on her bed. He remembered it so clearly, just as clearly as he remembered the golden expanse of her skin as she knelt naked on her bed and showed off the twining black tattoo on her back. He remembered it just as clearly as the peaceful look on her sleeping face when he’d snuck out of her room before the sun had fully risen. 

He rubbed his forehead as though to wipe the memories away. There was no changing his mind now. Danarius needed to die, and Fenris needed to leave Kirkwall after the deed was done. He couldn’t risk bringing the dangers of his past any closer to Hawke than he already had. 

He set Varric’s book aside and idly spun his phone on his small dining table. There was no point opening the phone; the only people who had his number were Hawke, Varric, and Anso, and he wasn’t expecting messages from any of them. Anso would only text him if something urgent arose from the dregs of Tevinter society, and Varric would only call him for work-related things. And Hawke… 

Well. Hawke would not be texting him anymore. Fenris had made sure of that. 

He pushed his chair back from the table and idly wandered over to the half-packed duffle bag that sat at the foot of his bed. He’d started packing this bag the day he’d broken things off with Hawke, in the event that she did the logical thing and called the police.

But a week had gone by. So Fenris had continued going to work, and Hawke had continued speaking to him as though he hadn’t treated her terribly, and life was moving on in such a terrible, uncomfortable impasse that Fenris was half-tempted to leave Kirkwall just to escape the awkwardness and the torturous memories of the blissful night he’d spent with Hawke. 

He stared unseeingly at the duffle bag for a long moment. Then his phone buzzed on the table. 

Fenris looked up in alarm, then grabbed the phone and flipped it open.

The message was from Hawke. 

_3:17pm - hey can we talk_

His heart instantly began racing. Why would she want to talk to him? What could she possibly want to talk about after the last-

His phone buzzed as another brief flurry of messages came through. 

_3:18pm - not about us dont worry_  
_3:18pm - i was just at my mom’s and i_

The messages stopped. Fenris stared worriedly at the screen as he waited for her to go on, but it was another excruciating two minutes before she texted again. 

_3:20pm - actually nvm i’ll see you later_

Fenris frowned. Something was clearly wrong, or else she wouldn’t have messaged him. 

His thumbs hovered over the keypad. He didn’t know what to do. No, that was wrong; he knew what he _should_ do. He should just ignore the messages. Responding would only give her hope. It would make her think he was someone she could rely on, that she could put her trust in, when the complete opposite was true. 

He slowly flipped the phone shut and put it down. He paced restlessly around the room, but all he could think about was Hawke’s smile when she’d told him that her mother had called the police on her. 

He imagined her bright, brittle, beautiful smile. He thought of how she’d confessed to him, how she’d told him he wasn’t a monster while making it clear, in the same breath, that she thought _she_ was one.

Fenris gritted his teeth, then made his way back to the table. He picked up his phone and flipped it open. 

**3:23pm - What’s happened?**

Her reply came less than a minute later. 

_3:24pm - honestly nothing different than the usual_  
_3:24pm - accusations and stuff, you know, the usual haha_  
_3:24pm - my brother was there so that was fun_  
_3:25pm - sorry i don’t mean to put this on you i know things are not ideal with us right now_

He nervously licked his dry lips. Then he tapped out another message. 

**3:25pm - Don’t apologize. I can talk if you wish.**

_3:25pm - are you sure? srsly i don’t want to interrupt your day_  
_3:26pm - you could be enjoying a nice porn marathon for all i know lol_  
_3:26pm - actually if thats the case then i definitely want to… talk_  
_3:26pm - ;)_

Despite himself, he actually scoffed. Then he typed out a response. 

**3:26pm - You can come over. Meet me at Athenril’s.**  
**3:26pm - Where are you?**

_3:26pm - i’m about 10 mins away_  
_3:27pm - seriously are you sure? i really dont want to be a bother_

**3:27pm - I will see you in ten minutes.**

Almost thirty minutes later, he was leading a babbling Hawke up the stairs to his third-floor studio apartment. “... told Emile time and time again not to add that flavour shot shit to my tea, but I think he likes to experiment with me. I swear, if his beverage mixes are anything like his sexual tastes, I feel sorry for the first girl he sleeps with.”

Fenris raised one eyebrow as he unlocked his apartment door. “First girl?”

“Oh, he’s absolutely a virgin,” Hawke scoffed. “I mean, not that that’s a bad thing or whatever, but you can practically smell it on him. Can’t you?”

He stood back as Hawke stepped through the door, then curiously looked around while kicking off her flats. “I can’t say I’ve thought about it,” he said. 

Hawke smirked as she entered his studio. “Well, I have,” she drawled. “I spend most of my idle time thinking about everyone’s sex lives. Thinking about Merrill’s is the most fun. I feel like it involves literal cherry-picking and making the bedsprings creak by jumping on the bed.”

Fenris huffed in amusement, then watched nervously as she slowly prowled around his tiny apartment. He’d hastily shoved the duffle bag in the closet, and otherwise there was nothing of particular interest for her to look at, but he still felt oddly nervous having her in his personal space. 

Suddenly he realized that he hadn’t had anyone in his personal space since he’d left the Tevinter Imperium. No, since before that, even; the one-night stands he’d had in Tevinter were far and in-between and never in his own house. 

His disquiet doubled when her curious gaze fell on something he’d forgotten to hide: something that had been tied to his bedside lamp since the day Hawke had wrapped it around his wounded knuckles. 

She shot him a quizzical look and pointed at the lamp. “Is that my scarf?” she asked. 

Fenris flushed, cursing himself for his sentimentality. He should have returned it to her weeks ago, but the scarf had sat on his bedside table for days, and then he’d eventually tied it to the lamp - ostensibly to keep the table tidy. But that didn’t explain why Fenris had spent every night staring at that blasted scarf before falling asleep.

“Yes,” said brusquely. He strode over to the lamp and untied the scarf. “I’m sorry I didn’t return it. I…” He trailed off and wracked his brain for an excuse, but there was no excuse to be had. 

He thrust the red fabric toward her. “Here. It is clean, it’s - I washed it. My apologies.”

She silently took the scarf and studied it for a moment, then put her tea on the table. Then, before Fenris could move away, she took his hand. 

He instinctively tried to pull away, but Hawke was too quick; within moments, her nimble fingers had tied the scarf around his wrist. She tucked the ends against the inside of his wrist, then released his hand. “Keep it,” she said. “Give yourself a splash of colour to break up all that black.” She smirked and eyed him from head to toe. 

He eyed the bright red scarf on his wrist, then self-consciously shook out the sleeve of his jacket to cover it up. His cheeks still felt embarrassingly hot. He gestured for her to sit at the table. “Tell me what happened with your mother,” he said.

Hawke sighed and picked up her tea. To Fenris’s mild bemusement, she sat on the floor instead of at the table and settled her back against his bed. 

She stretched out her legs and sipped her tea. “Honestly, she’s just…” She trailed off and tugged an earring, then smiled brightly at him. “I shouldn’t complain,” she said firmly. “I think she’s depressed. She won’t go to the doctor or go to those support group things, but I talked about it with Anders, and… She’s not coping well. It’s not her fault.” She slurped noisily from her tea. “It’s not her fault,” she said softly, as though to herself. 

Fenris frowned and slowly sat in one of the dining table chairs. “What happened today?”

Hawke wrapped both hands around her tea and stared at the lid. “I blew up at her,” she said. She shrugged and smiled a bit, but her eyes remained on her cup. “I got sick of the little pointed comments and I just… blew up. Told her to be straight with me, so she did.” She shrugged again and gulped her tea. “She still blames me for my dad. I mean, she should, given that I did exactly what she thinks, so it’s fine. I just…” 

Fenris watched the movement of her throat as she swallowed. Then she lifted her amber eyes to his face. “Fenris, does this… does this feeling ever go away?” 

He knew what Hawke meant. She was talking about the way your life inexorably changed the moment you knew you were responsible for someone else’s death. The way it was always there, always written at the back of your mind like a banner: _You killed someone_. She was talking about the way it seemed to sink into your skin and simply sit there no matter how many years went by, like a stain that could never quite be washed away. 

But Hawke’s situation wasn’t the same. She wasn’t like him. He hadn’t helped to ease anyone’s suffering. The people Fenris had killed and hurt had been strangers to him. 

Hawke was looking at him expectantly, and there was so much sadness in her customarily cheerful face, and Fenris dearly wished he could give her a better answer. 

But he couldn’t lie to her. “No,” he said quietly. “It may lessen in time. But… the memory lingers. It becomes a scar, tenacious as any other. You will live with it, but… no. It doesn’t go away.”

“Oh,” she said. She twisted her lips and idly ran her finger along the lid of her cup. “Well, that sucks.”

He smiled faintly at her flippant words. “Yes, it does,” he said. 

She offered him a faint smirk, then sighed and flicked the side of her cup. “What was _your_ family like?” she asked. Then her eyes widened. “If you want to talk about it, I mean. You don’t have to - I hope that wasn’t a terrible thing to ask…”

“It’s all right,” he assured her. In truth, no one had asked him about his family for years - not that he had allowed anyone close enough to even know that they were dead. But Hawke had somehow managed to burrow beneath his armour and sneak inside his tattooed skin, and having her ask about his family didn’t feel as invasive as he’d once thought it to be. 

He awkwardly scratched the back of his head. It had been so long since he’d spoken of his family that he wasn’t quite sure where to start. 

“Well, my father died when I was very young,” he said slowly. “He was in the Tevinter military during the Seheron War. My mother…” He hesitated. This was where things became painful. 

“Her name was Malina,” he finally said. “She was a schoolteacher. She was always smiling or laughing about some foolish thing or another. Not unlike some women I know,” he added, with a small nod at Hawke.

She grinned, and he gave her a small smile before going on. “She became ill when I was seventeen. A rheumatic disease. It was gradual at first, but the symptoms progressed quite quickly. She stopped being able to work when I was eighteen. Varania was thirteen at the time. When I finished secondary school, I started working.” 

He’d been unable to find a job that could pay the bills and allow him to look after Varania and his mother. For months he’d jumped from job to job, juggling more than one and never having good enough attendance at any of them to hold them down. The undercurrent of anxiety he’d felt during that terrible time had made him feel nauseous on a daily basis. 

That was when Danarius’s crew had come in. Fenris’s family lived in a run-down neighbourhood, and his mother had always warned him who to stay away from, but when he’d met Hadriana and her so-called friends, that’s all they had seemed to him: friends, people who sympathized with him and offered him some cash in exchange for helping them out with a little lyrium dealing here and there.

And Fenris had been desperate and naive enough to agree. 

He pushed the self-recriminating thoughts away. It was useless to dwell on the far-distant past. Besides, Hadriana had gotten her comeuppance in the end. She was the one he’d overheard talking about how Danarius had set him up. And she was the first person he’d killed of his own free will. 

He forced his gaze back to Hawke’s open, curious face. _Pleasant memories,_ he thought. That was what Hawke needed to hear. He wracked his brain to try and come up with something nice. 

Finally he struck upon a moment he could share. He huffed in amusement as he remembered it. “Varania was never fond of school,” he told Hawke. “She spent all her time on Facebook, Instagram… By the time she was seventeen, she had too many followers for her own good. She was always begging me to do her homework for her.” 

“And let me guess,” Hawke said. “You said ‘no, Varania, absolutely not’.” 

Hawke lowered her voice in a mocking imitation of Fenris’s voice, and he smirked at her. “Would it shock you to know that I did, in fact, do her homework sometimes?” 

Hawke’s eyes widened, and she barked out a laugh. “Um, yes? I actually don’t believe you.”

Fenris chuckled. “It happened more often than I care to admit. Particularly when she had papers to write. She hated writing essays. Odd, given the long ranting posts she would write on Facebook.” Fenris, on the other hand, had always been fond of writing. He’d once wanted to go to college for writing, in fact. Perhaps to become a music journalist, or something of the like. 

But that was a lifetime ago. Fenris wasn’t that naive boy anymore. 

Hawke crossed her legs and beamed at him. “Go on. Tell me more.”

He stretched his own legs out and folded his arms. “I once wrote her a paper about the influence of 80s new wave and argued that modern music would not exist without it.”

Hawke’s eyes grew huge and round. “Holy fuck. Okay then.”

“Yes, quite,” Fenris drawled. “Unfortunately for Varania, my mother saw it on her laptop and refused to let her hand it in. My mother said it had my ‘particular brand of eloquent bullshit’ written all over it. Varania failed the assignment, and I was forbidden from helping her anymore.” 

Hawke laughed merrily. “And that lasted, what, two days until the next assignment came home?”

Fenris smiled. “And that is how I know you are an older sibling, yourself.” 

She laughed again, and Fenris admired her loose posture as she lounged barefoot on his floor. He’d shared this particular benign memory in an attempt to cheer her up, and clearly it had succeeded. But to his pleasant surprise, he was feeling more relaxed and cheerful himself: more relaxed than he had felt in a week, at the very least. The last time he’d felt this much at ease… 

He swallowed. It was when he’d been lying naked in Hawke’s bed in the sweat-laced afterglow. 

His gaze settled on her face, and with a jolt, he realized she was looking at him as well. Her expression was soft and warm, and heavy as well, like the look on her face when they were sitting together on the couch at that blasted party of hers.

Fenris stared gormlessly at her. She was so beautiful, and the look on her face was the definition of _inviting_ , and Fenris was seized by a mad, impossible urge to crawl toward her and bury himself in the warmth of that look on her face and everything it seemed to imply. 

And then, in that weighted, petrifying, _dangerous_ silence, Hawke’s phone _ding_ ed. 

Hawke dropped her gaze, and Fenris took a deep breath as she pulled her phone from her pocket. She glanced at the screen and frowned. 

She tucked the phone back in her pocket, but a moment later, it _ding_ ed again. She rolled her eyes as she pulled it out, but Fenris noticed the nervous way she nibbled her lower lip as she studied the screen.

“Is something wrong?” he asked. 

She shrugged and sipped her tea without looking at him. “My brother,” she said. “He wants to talk.” She tapped her fingers idly on the lid of her cup. 

Fenris tilted his head. “You mentioned that he was at your mother’s as well?”

She nodded. “Mother told him I wasn’t coming. Even though I _told_ her last night that I was coming over. She’s so-” She broke off and shook her head, then tucked her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “It’s nothing. It’s fine. I - it’s not urgent. He probably just wants to pick up where she left off. I’m not really in the mood right for a tongue lashing right now.” 

She frowned at her knees, and Fenris bit the inside of his cheek, uncertain what to say. He couldn’t really comfort her, as he didn’t know her brother. Not that he was particularly good at providing comfort, anyway. 

He finally picked up his cup of coffee from Athenril’s, which had long gone cold by now. There was a brief and awkward silence as he took a sip, and then Hawke’s phone _ding_ ed yet again.

She sighed as she picked it up. “I’m sorry, Fenris, this is so rude…”

He shook his head to refute her apology and sipped his coffee again. Her eyebrows lifted as she read the text; then, to Fenris’s surprise, she held the phone out to him. 

He gingerly took it from her fingers and read the texts from her brother. 

_4:48pm - Are you at home rn?_  
_4:48pm - I just wanted to talk for a few mins_  
_4:51pm - I’m sick of fighting about Dad_

He handed her back the phone. “What will you do?” 

“I don’t know,” she said. Her eyes were wide as she ran her thumb across the screen. 

Fenris picked at the bottom rim of his cup for a moment. Then, without quite thinking about it, he spoke again. “I can accompany you. If you want… backup.”

Her wide copper eyes darted to his face. “Why?” she asked. 

_Because I would do anything for you._ The thought surged from the depths of his belly to the back of his tongue, so quickly and vehemently that it took him by surprise, and for a moment, he was terrified that he would say it out loud.

He couldn’t say it, though. He _couldn’t_ , not with his rotten past still festering in the rearview mirror of his life, and not with the blank precipice of the future that stretched beyond the certainty of Danarius’s death. Hawke might want him, and - _venhedis, Fenris, admit the fucking truth to yourself,_ he thought - he might want her more than he’d wanted anything in years. But wanting someone wasn’t enough. 

Hawke deserved better, and Fenris wasn’t enough. 

He breathed carefully through the vice of pain around his ribs and brushed a piece of lint from his jacket. “It is nearly time for work,” he said. “We would be heading in the same direction.”

He could feel her steady gaze on his face, but he couldn’t look at her, not right now. Not with this ugly lump of longing sitting in his chest where his heart was meant to be. 

She finally stretched out her legs and rose to her feet. “That’s okay,” she said softly. “No backup necessary. It’s just my baby brother.” She placed her empty tea cup on the table and made her way toward the door. 

Fenris rose from his chair and politely accompanied her to the door. “Hawke, I am… sorry for your troubles. The accusations from your mother…” He shrugged uncomfortably. “I don’t know what to say, but I am here.” 

He finally chanced a look at her face, and he almost wished he hadn’t. Her expression was like a twisted mixture of hope and yearning and confusion all at once. 

Then she smiled, and the knot of emotions on her face disappeared. “Thanks, but don’t worry about me,” she said. “It’s honestly not that bad. Usually we have a pretty good time together. We like to gossip about the same shows on HBO.” She shoved her feet into her flats. “Besides, you know what they say: blood is thicker than water. Or lyrium, in this case.” She gave him a casual little wave, then strolled away.

Fenris bit his lip. He understood the sentiment. But as he watched her walk away, pulling on his longing for her with every step that she placed between them both, he couldn’t help but wonder if some things were more binding than blood. 

As Hawke disappeared around the corner and down the stairs, Fenris heard the distinctive buzz of his phone on the table. 

He frowned, this time with more than a little concern. Hawke had just left, so the message couldn’t be from her. Well, it could be - she’d been known to send him barrages of silly texts moments after they parted ways - but it seemed very unlikely.

He strode over to the table and flipped open his phone, and the breath froze in his lungs as he read the text. 

It was from Anso. 

**5:03pm - Someone has been asking about you. Female elf, 20s. Named Varania.**

Fenris’s head was ringing with disbelief and suspicion and a blinding, dizzying hope. _Impossible,_ he thought fuzzily. 

He stared at the phone for a long, paralyzing moment, then hit the ‘call’ button and lifted the phone to his ear. 

“Anso,” he barked. “Tell me what you know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who wants to see the selfie that's mentioned in this chapter? Because my soulmate Schoute [drew art of it!!](https://pikapeppa.tumblr.com/post/183103489478/hawke-held-the-phone-overhead-as-though-she-was) AND IT IS BEAUTIFUL AND GOOD!! 
> 
> [Come follow me](https://pikapeppa.tumblr.com/) and [Schoute](https://schoute.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr for more AU and general Dragon Age shenanigans! xoxo


	9. Danarius

Fenris pushed open the door to the Hanged Man and strode over to the bar. 

Piper and Hawke looked up at his abrupt entrance. Piper frowned, and Hawke’s eyes widened in surprise. “Fenris!” she exclaimed. “What are you doing here? It’s early-”

“I need to speak to you,” he said. “In private.” He shot Piper an expectant glance. 

Piper folded her arms. “Anything you want to say to Hawke, you can say to me. And then I can tell you to _fuck off,_ which Hawke clearly isn’t willing to-”

“Thanks, Pipes,” Hawke said loudly. She laughed nervously and patted Piper’s shoulder. “Why don’t you go back to the stockroom? Those crates of wine aren’t going to unpack themselves. Or, uh, go catch up with Varric about _Game of Thrones_. His theories about the final season are a little _too_ out there, in my opinion.” 

Piper obstinately lifted her chin, and Fenris rested his palms on the bar and gazed steadily at her. “I wouldn’t ask if this was not important,” he said firmly. In truth, he hated making his urgency so obvious, but the revelations of the past week had his nerves stretched tight.

Piper shot him a hard look, then unfolded her arms. “Fine,” she said. She pointed sternly at Hawke. “But if you want me to come out and kick his ass, you fucking call me.” 

“Yep, uh-huh, will do,” Hawke sing-songed, then grimaced at Fenris as Piper disappeared into Varric’s office. “Sorry,” she said. “She’s, um, protective. What’s going on?”

“I cannot work tonight,” he blurted. “Perhaps not tomorrow, either.”

Her eyebrows rose in surprise. “Why? What’s wrong?”

Fenris lowered his voice. “My sister is coming to meet me.”

“ _What?_ ” Hawke gasped. “Wait. But she’s…? You said-”

“I am just as stunned as you are,” he murmured. “I found out last week that she's alive. She managed to get word to a contact of mine. Apparently someone from Isabela’s party posted a photo online, and Varania recognized me.”

Hawke’s face went pale. She covered her mouth with her hands. “Oh Maker,” she breathed. “Fenris, that’s my fault, I’m sorry-”

He shook his head impatiently. “It is done. What matters is Varania is alive and well. She has been working in Minrathous as a waitress this whole time. She thought _I_ was dead.” 

“And your mother?” Hawke said eagerly. “Does that mean - is she…?” 

She trailed off as he shook his head. “No,” he said softly. “She truly died. But not… it wasn’t Danarius’s men after all. It was her illness. She… she thought I had left her and Varania to fend for themselves.” He broke off and rubbed his mouth with his hand. 

“Oh balls. Fenris, I’m… fuck, I’m so sorry,” she whispered. 

He shook his head wordlessly. He shouldn’t be telling Hawke all of this. While walking here from his apartment in Lowtown, Fenris had told himself he was coming to the Hanged Man to inform Varric in person that he needed the day off. But he couldn’t deny that he’d known Hawke would be here unpacking the biweekly shipment of wine. As soon as he’d pushed open the door and seen her smiling face, he couldn’t resist telling her what was happening.

Varania was alive and unharmed. She was on her way to meet him. Hawke was the only one who would understand why this was so significant. 

And she was the only one who might understand why Fenris was scared.

He placed his palms on the bar again and released a careful breath. “There is a rest stop between Kirkwall and Cumberland. I am meeting her there tomorrow, so I must set out tonight.” 

Hawke lowered her hands from her mouth. “Between - why? Why a rest stop? Why not invite her here? She’d be more than welcome.”

He lifted his gaze to her wide-eyed face. “I believe it’s a trap,” he said, very quietly. “I think Danarius is manipulating her, coercing her. The timing of it… Hawke, it’s too perfect. It is too convenient. Why now? Why would she only find me now, after all this time?”

“But you said it was photos from the party,” Hawke whispered. Her face was anxious and pale, and her hands were twisting together nervously. “If she found photos on the Internet… Fenris, I am so fucking sorry about that, I made you come-”

He grabbed her hand. “It is not your fault,” he snapped, then lowered his voice again. “Danarius must be involved. I know it. They have been in the same city this whole time, and his people knew my family…” He shook his head. “Nothing this fortunate is ever as it seems.” 

He took a deep breath, then met Hawke’s wide copper eyes. “Hawke,” he whispered, “if this is a set-up, and events take the turn that I predict they will…” 

Her fingers tensed his hand. “No,” she breathed.

“...I may not return,” he finished. “I have to prepare for my… my plans to come to fruition.” 

“No,” she hissed. She squeezed his hand hard with both of hers. “Fenris, _no._ Don’t you fucking do this.” 

He tried halfheartedly to free his hand from hers. “I told you, I have no choice. I can’t let my sister be harmed by him. I will not allow it.” 

Hawke squeezed his hand even tighter. “Let’s call the police,” she whispered vehemently. “We’ll tell Aveline, tell my brother, they’ll help.”

Fenris shook his head. “This is outside of their jurisdiction.”

“Then bring it into their jurisdiction!” Hawke’s expression was fierce, and her fingers were like a vice around his wrist. “Tell Varania to come here. Or to Isabela’s apartment, or wherever you want, and Aveline will - she’ll set up cordons around the city or something, she’ll keep an eye out-” 

Fenris reached up and took her chin in a gentle grip. “Hawke,” he said quietly. “I told you. You cannot change my mind. I did not come here to argue with you, I… I came to say goodbye.”

As soon as the words left his lips, he realized they were true. This was the real reason he’d come here: not to talk to Varric, and not even really to talk to Hawke, but just… to _see_ her. Such a rash, thoughtless action, when he should be getting ready for tomorrow. He should be in Darktown procuring knives and a vest and as much ammo as he could afford. But instead, as soon as he’d received confirmation of Varania’s plans, he’d come straight here. 

He stared into Hawke’s shining amber eyes. He was foolish, and coming here was a foolish thing to do when he had such limited time, but he couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Kirkwall without seeing her lovely gamine face one last time. 

Her chin was trembling against his thumb. “You’re a fucking asshole,” she whispered. 

He swallowed hard. “Yes,” he agreed. 

She burst out a watery little laugh. Then her eyes darted over his shoulder.

At the same moment, Fenris heard the door of the Hanged Man creaking open. He turned around to see a slim female figure stepping through the door. 

He didn’t recognize her at first; it was dim in the Hanged Man and sunny still outside, and all he saw was the distinct long-legged silhouette of an elf. But his own elven eyes accustomed quickly to the shifting light, and when his gaze finally found her face, his jaw dropped in shock. 

It had been almost five years, but her face and her bright green eyes were exactly the same as he remembered. “Varania?” he croaked.

Behind the bar, Hawke gasped. “Holy fuck,” she blurted. 

Varania took a tentative step into the pub. “Hello, brother,” she said softly. 

Her accent, her voice - they were so strangely familiar that they almost made him dizzy. He stared dumbly at her as she tucked her hands into the pockets of her silk bomber jacket. “H-how did you find me?” he asked.

She shifted her weight to one hip. “You said you were working at a pub now. It wasn’t hard to figure out which one.” 

He narrowed his eyes. “I did not tell you I was working in Kirkwall,” he said. 

She rolled her eyes, and the expression was so familiar and so _dear_ that it made him lightheaded. “ _Kaffas_ , give me some credit,” she scoffed. “How stupid do you think I am?”

Despite his anxiety and his mounting bemusement, he smiled. “Do you really wish for me to answer that?” 

Varania grinned. The sight of it gave him an odd, vertiginous feeling of being home, and without really thinking about it, he took a small step toward her. 

She shifted back toward the door, and Fenris stopped. “What’s wrong?” he said.

“Nothing,” she replied. Her eyes darted toward the door. 

He flicked his eyes at the door as well, then back to her face. “Varania, tell me what is wrong,” he said urgently. “I will protect you.” 

“I don’t need - there’s nothing wrong,” she said. Her eyes were on his face again, but she was edging slowly toward the door as she spoke, and Fenris forced himself to breathe through a sudden surge of adrenaline.

“It’s all right,” he said to Varania, as calmly as he could. “I know you’re not alone. Tell them to come inside.” He glanced over his shoulder at Hawke. “Go to the stockroom,” he muttered urgently. “Stay there until I tell you to come out.”

“No,” Hawke said.

He stiffened in surprise, then glared at her. “Go to the stockroom now,” he hissed.

She shook her head. Her face was pale but resolute. “No,” she insisted. “I’m not leaving you alone.” 

Fenris stared at her in disbelief and not a little anger, then whipped around as the door to the Hanged Man opened once more. 

A tall, grey-haired man in a sharp blazer and slacks stepped inside, and Fenris curled his lip in disgust. “Danarius,” he spat.

Behind him, he heard Hawke’s sharp intake of breath, and a fresh surge of anxiety further sharpened his nerves. She was so fucking stubborn, and so fucking _vulnerable._ In all the times Fenris had imagined this moment, all the times he’d dreamed about facing Danarius and handing him his death, he’d never imagined it would be like this. 

He’d never imagined that he’d be caught so unprepared, with no weapons but the knife he always carried on his ankle. And he’d certainly never imagined that the two people he most cared about in the world would be here as well, and so terribly in danger. 

Then, as though the situation wasn’t horrible enough already, Varania darted behind Danarius as though to protect herself from _him_. 

Fenris stared at her. Disbelief roiled in his stomach, thrashing viciously with his rising temper until it finally spilled from his mouth. “You brought him here?” he barked.

Danarius laughed softly. “Now now, Fenris, don’t blame your sister,” he said. “At least one member of your family knows where their loyalty truly lies.”

Fenris ignored him and continued to glare at Varania. “You sold me out to the likes of _him?_ ” he shouted. “Do you have any idea what he has done? The murders and tortures he’s ordered and orchestrated? He is an abomination!”

“He took care of Mother and me when you gave up on us!” Varania retorted.

Fenris recoiled in shock. “ _Vishante kaffas,_ ” he rasped. “Is that what he told you?”

“That’s what happened!” Varania yelled. Her youthful face was twisted with resentment. “You got addicted to lyrium, and you stopped caring about Mother and I, and then you went and killed all those people! Danarius kept us safe from _you!_ ”

Fenris gaped at her. This was… it was ludicrous. Absolute fucking madness. He’d only gotten addicted to lyrium after he thought she and his mother were dead.

His incredulous gaze slid back to Danarius’s satisfied face. This misunderstanding, this purposeful misdirection - it was all Danarius’s fault. “You festering, filthy sack of _lies,_ ” he hissed, and he took a furious step toward him.

“Fenris!” Hawke squeaked, and at the same moment, Danarius pulled a Glock from his belt.

Hawke gasped as Danarius leveled the pistol at Fenris’s face. “Come now, Fenris, you know your sister speaks the truth,” he said pleasantly. “You killed Hadriana and Eldren and Vitaris, and you took their money and their lyrium stock and you ran. And alas, here we are, right around the time when you would have run out of supplies.” He tilted his head. “It’s time to come home. Come and make amends for the wrongs you’ve done.”

Fenris snarled at Danarius’s lies. His tone was censorious, but his expression was so damned smug, and Fenris was seized by an all-consuming urge to tear that look off of his supercilious face. 

“You’re so full of shit,” Hawke suddenly said. 

Danarius’s aim didn’t falter, but his gaze darted briefly to Hawke. “And who, pray tell, are _you?_ ”

Fenris’s rage was dampened slightly with a fresh peak of fear. He did _not_ want Hawke to garner Danarius’s attention. 

“Hawke, stop,” he warned.

She ignored both him and Danarius’s question. “I bet it was _you_ who got Fenris addicted to lyrium, wasn’t it?” she said. “It couldn’t just be the lyrium salve. That makes no sense. You did something to him while he was in the hospital, didn’t you?” 

Her tone was bolshy and rude, and Fenris kept his attention fixed on Danarius’s gun and his face. Disrespect was one of Danarius’s greatest peeves and his greatest triggers; it made him angry, and anger made him careless, but it also made him more brutal. Carelessness was something that Fenris could take advantage of. Brutality, on the other hand… 

Fenris slowly shifted toward Danarius as Hawke continued to talk. “Did you have some corrupt Vint doctors dump lyrium in his IV machine? Maybe mix it into his food? The liquid form is nearly tasteless, after all. I bet that’s exactly what you did. Sounds like the kind of thing the Imperium is notorious for.”

“Watch your mouth, my dear,” Danarius said softly. “You should be very careful who you speak to in this way.” 

The gun was still on Fenris, but Danarius’s attention was fully on Hawke now. Fenris continued to ease his way forward, and from the corner of his eye, he watched as Hawke leaned her elbows casually on the bar. 

“Oh, I know exactly who I’m talking to,” she drawled. “A man with a big fancy gun. You know what they say about men who carry guns.” She tilted her head. “Making up for deficits in… other areas.” 

_Venhedis,_ Fenris thought in desperation. That was going to be the last straw. Sure enough, Danarius’s face twisted with anger, and he shifted his aim from Fenris to Hawke - 

Fenris lunged forward and shoved Danarius’s arm away from her, and three seconds later, Fenris had the pistol levelled at Danarius’s head. 

Varania screamed and cowered against the wall, and Fenris swiftly shifted position until he was standing in front of Hawke. “On your fucking knees,” he growled at Danarius. “Right now.”

Behind him, he could hear Hawke gasping for breath - delayed panic, he suspected, though he didn’t dare turn around to confirm. He glared at Danarius. “ _Now,_ ” he barked. 

Danarius ignored him. His narrow face was wreathed in an unpleasant smile, and Fenris’s agitation thrummed at his former employer’s appearance of calm. “Use caution, Fenris,” he said softly. “You know I am not alone. If you kill me, what then? How will you escape? You only have so many bullets.”

He swallowed. Danarius wasn’t wrong. But he couldn’t bring himself to lower the weapon. 

He stared at Danarius past the barrel of the gun. This was it - the moment Fenris had fantasized about for so long: Danarius, helpless and unarmed. With the simple squeeze of a trigger, he would be dead. Fenris could fight through a handful of Danarius’s guards; he’d done so before. And then Fenris would finally be free.

But this didn’t _feel_ right. The vindication he thought he’d feel was completely lacking. Why did this freedom taste like ashes?

Then Hawke spoke. “Fenris, don’t,” she said. “You’re better than him. He’s the vile scumbag of a murderer in this scenario. Don’t be like him.” 

Danarius’s eyebrows rose mockingly. “Is that what you think, my dear? Perhaps our little Fenris has not been completely honest with you about his past.”

Fenris curled his lip. His finger tightened on the trigger. “Shut your mouth, Danarius,” he snarled. 

Hawke spoke again, and her voice was closer this time, as though she was leaning over the bar toward him. “Don’t listen to him. I know you, okay? And you don’t have to do this,” she said urgently. “Trust me. It’s really, _really_ not necessary.” 

Fenris frowned slightly. There was something pointed about her tone, some implication he wasn’t catching, but Hawke wasn’t finished talking. 

“For me, Fenris,” she said desperately. “Please, _please_ , for me, don’t do this.”

That clinched it. That was all she needed to say. After all, Fenris had already admitted it to himself, long before this rotten incident had begun: he would do anything for Hawke. 

Including setting aside his long-coveted revenge.

He gritted his teeth in anger, then exhaled and lowered the gun. Varania slumped against the wall, and behind him, he heard Hawke release a little sigh of relief. 

Then someone banged on the door of the Hanged Man, and everything seemed to happen at once. 

From outside, a strong female voice announced the presence of the Kirkwall Police. Out of the corner of his eye, Fenris saw Hawke straightening up and moving to the side. The front door flew open, and a handful of police poured inside. 

Danarius’s hand darted into the left side of his blazer, and Fenris’s gaze snapped back to find his face twisted with rage. Danarius pulled out a second gun, and his eyes - and his gun-wielding arm - drifted toward Hawke. 

Fenris didn’t hesitate. He lifted his gun and pulled the trigger, and with a dull crack of bullet through bone, Danarius’s head snapped back. 

Varania and Hawke screamed, and Danarius’s dead body hit the ground with a limp finality, and Fenris instantly dropped the gun and placed his hands behind his head. Seconds later, a red-haired female officer had him on his knees in handcuffs. 

A dozen police officers were in the room, and half of them were guarding cuffed men and women who were likely Danarius’s associates. Varric was talking urgently to the red-haired officer, and overlaying all the noise and activity was Piper’s hysterical voice. 

“Hawke! _Fenhedis lasa_ , Maker’s fucking balls and Elgarnan’s crusty cock…” Piper was behind the bar with Hawke and a dark-haired male officer, and both of them were hugging Hawke so tightly that Fenris could barely see her head. 

“I’m fine, I’m fine, seriously - Carv, you’re crushing my ribs, really…” Hawke finally managed to wiggle her way out of the mad tangle of limbs, and Fenris finally made eye contact with her. 

Her eyes were huge and haunted, and her face was absolutely leached of blood. Fenris dropped his gaze to his knees. She couldn’t have known why he killed Danarius; there was so much happening in the pub. Hawke would think he was exacting his revenge, but he’d had no choice. 

Hawke would have died if he hadn’t acted. There was no choice. 

A moment later, Hawke was standing beside him. “Aveline!” she gasped, and she hugged the red-haired officer. “Thank Andraste’s glorious tits. You have perfect timing, you know. But you can’t arrest Fenris, you can’t, this wasn’t his fault-”

“Hawke, don’t interfere,” Aveline said in a stern but gentle tone. “This gentleman has to come in to the station. There will be a full investigation, all right?” She patted Hawke’s shoulder maternally. “Now go on outside with the paramedics. Get yourself checked out. That other woman is already outside with them.”

 _Varania._ Fenris lifted his face. “Is she harmed?” he demanded.

Aveline frowned slightly. “No. Do you know her?”

“Fenris isn’t talking without a lawyer present,” Hawke blurted. She dropped to her knees in front of him. “Don’t tell them anything,” she said urgently. “Cullen will fix this. He fixes everything. Piper already called him, he’s on his way now. Maker’s balls, are you okay?”

Her hands were on his face. Her fingers were trembling, and her face was still white as a sheet, but she was touching him, stroking his face as though _he_ was the injured party - as though he hadn’t just shot someone right in front of her. 

He swallowed the swelling lump in his throat. “I - yes, I’m-”

“Shh, don’t talk, don’t talk,” she said. She patted his cheeks, then lunged forward and hugged him hard, knocking Aveline’s hand away from his shoulder in the process. 

“Hawke!” Aveline scolded. 

Fenris breathed in the sandalwood scent of her hair. Then Aveline pulled Hawke away from him and hauled her to her feet. “Carver, get your sister out of here. Get the medics to check her out,” she snapped.

The dark-haired officer saluted smartly. “Ma’am,” he said, and he and Piper hurried around the bar to join Hawke. 

Carver put his arm around Hawke’s shoulders. “Maker’s mercy, Rynne, the things you get yourself into…” 

“Don’t you dare tell Mom about this,” Hawke threatened. Then she, Piper, and Carver disappeared outside.

Fenris exhaled and looked up at Aveline, who folded her arms. “I suppose you’re not going to talk until your counsel arrives?” she said archly. 

He nodded politely. “That is correct. I’d like to wait, if I may.”

Aveline narrowed her eyes, then dropped her arms and nodded. “All right. Let’s get you into a car in the meantime.” She turned away briefly to give some orders to her officers. 

Varric chuckled and folded his arms. “I’d feel sorry for her if I didn’t know how much she misses field work.”

Fenris glanced at him. Then something clicked into place. “You called the police?”

Varric nodded. “And Hawke hit the alarm button beneath the bar. Double warnings seem to be enough to make the police captain herself come running.” He patted Fenris’s shoulder. “They might charge you with murder, but don’t worry, you’ll get out on bail. We’ll speak up for you.”

Fenris studied him with rising confusion. He wasn’t sure why Varric was being so kind to him. He’d just shot a man in the middle of Varric’s pub, after all. “Why are you helping me?” he asked.

Varric smirked. “CCTV. This place may be a karaoke-hosting alcohol-serving dump, but it’s a damned secure one. I don’t take chances with you guys’ safety.” He tucked his hands in his pockets, and the look he gave Fenris was unequivocally approving. “Piper and I saw everything. We don’t record sound, so we didn’t hear much, but we didn’t need to. We know what would have happened if you hadn’t… acted so fast.” He squeezed Fenris’s shoulder once more. “I’ll give Cullen the footage right away. Trust me, you’ll be fine.”

Fenris stared at him. That inconvenient lump was in his throat again. “Varric…” 

Varric chuckled. “Ah, don’t thank me yet. You might be up for a rough couple of weeks. Aveline is fair but _very_ thorough.” He patted Fenris’s shoulder again, then pulled Fenris’s hood over his conspicuous hair. “Here. You might want that on.”

Fenris swallowed hard and silently nodded his thanks. Then Aveline was pulling him to his feet and leading him outside. 

Sure enough, there was a rubbernecking crowd around the pub in addition to the handful of police cars and officers, and Fenris ducked his head, grateful for Varric’s forethought in pulling up his hood. 

Aveline swiftly led him to a car, then helped him inside of it with brisk efficiency. “I’ll be back shortly,” she said, then she closed the door. 

Fenris sat in the silence of the car and simply breathed. He wasn’t sure what to feel or what to think. Everything that had just happened was so completely unexpected. 

_Danarius is dead._ That was the biggest conclusion of the day. After years of resentment and hate and being chased across Thedas, Fenris was finally free of his former employer’s clutches.

He should be happy. Elated, even. This was what he’d wanted for years, and even if it hadn’t happened quite the way he’d imagined, the deed was done, and Fenris was free.

But he didn’t feel different. He didn’t feel… good. And his disappointment about Varania was a huge part of it. 

She’d been on Danarius’s side from the start; Fenris was certain of this. What he didn’t know was how long she’d been working for Danarius. It could have been for years. Maybe even since Fenris had been injured. 

And this thought - that the betrayal could have been that old and longstanding - hurt enough to extinguish any satisfaction he might have felt from Danarius’s death. 

The police car door opened, and Fenris looked up to see Aveline holding Varania’s arm. 

Varania was in handcuffs, and her face looked like thunder. Aveline’s lips were pursed. “Hawke said this woman put you in danger,” Aveline said. “She’s coming to the precinct too.”

Fenris shifted along the seat to make room for Varania. Aveline gently pushed her into the car and scowled at them both. “Behave yourselves,” she said sternly. Then she shut the door and stepped away.

They sat in a horrible, awkward silence for a long minute, and Fenris studied his sister from the corner of his eye. Now that they were sitting in close quarters, he could see the tattoo on her neck: twining white lines that crept up the side of her throat. They were certainly more subtle than Fenris’s body-spanning tattoos, but there they were, clear as day.

Unable to help himself, Fenris spoke. “How long were you… in the business?” he said, quietly and carefully.

“Don’t judge me!” Varania burst out. “You were in it too. How else do you think I got the idea-”

“I am not judging,” Fenris said, as calmly as he could. “I am simply asking.” 

Varania glared at him through the curtain of her dark red hair. “You don’t know what it was like when Mother was sick. You weren’t there. The bills and the care she needed, and even after she died-”

“Do you think I wanted to not be there?” Fenris demanded. “Varania, _I didn’t know._ I thought you were dead. I… _fasta vass,_ Danarius told me you were dead! If I could have been there, I would have been! I would _never_ have let you get roped into all of this.” He clenched his teeth and glared at her. “I would have given you and Mother everything.” 

He watched the movement of her throat as she swallowed hard. She shook her head. “You’re stupid if you think you wanted to be there,” she said tremulously. “Only an idiot would want that. All the money Danarius gave me went straight back to the hospital.” She pressed her lips together hard, then glared at Fenris anew. “He gave me a raise, you know. More responsibility. I was making such good money, and he was letting me manage his dealers -”

“He was using you,” Fenris interrupted. “You were a pawn.”

Varania recoiled as though he’d slapped her. “And that makes you what?” she demanded. “The ultimate prize?” 

Fenris frowned at her. “No. Of course not. I…” He trailed off, then dropped his gaze to his cuffed wrists. “I don’t know.”

The edge of Hawke’s red scarf was peeking out from under his sleeve, and Fenris stared at it in pensive silence. In truth, he didn’t know what Danarius had planned for him. Did Danarius simply want him back as an enforcer and assassin? Maybe he just wanted Fenris back so he could torture him slowly, or sell him to a rival gang for the pleasure of it. Fenris would never know. 

He sighed, then looked at Varania again. “The organization will crumble without Danarius,” he told her. “You know how precious he was with his assets. You shouldn’t go back to Tevinter. Start a new life somewhere else.” 

“I don’t _want_ to start over,” Varania retorted. “I had a good thing going in Tevinter. I didn’t need your help.” 

She sounded petulant and defensive, and so very much like his little sister that it made Fenris’s heart ache. He shrugged and looked out the window. “Fine. Do as you like. It is your life.” 

They sat quietly for a long moment. Then Varania broke the silence. “Is that what you’ll do? Assuming your fancy lawyer gets you off?” she said quietly. “Just… start over?”

He shrugged. “Perhaps.” In truth, Fenris had no idea what he would do now. He supposed he could testify against Danarius’s organization, but if he wanted to do that, he would have to return to Tevinter - something he’d sworn he would never do - and he would have to incriminate himself for all the things he’d done under Danarius’s orders, and he wasn’t that stupid or self-destructive. But he hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d told Hawke he didn’t have anything planned beyond Danarius’s death. 

Disappearing and starting over could be nice. He was well-versed in the whole blasted process by now, after all. He could go to a new place and finally settle down. Make a new life for himself where no one had to know he’d ever been skilled in the wielding of weapons and the dealing of death. 

But Fenris didn’t want to leave Kirkwall, and there was only one reason why. His eyes fell on his hands again, and on the precious scrap of red fabric that was wrapped around his wrist. 

A sharp knock on the car door window made him jolt. He and Varania looked up, and Fenris raised his eyebrows in surprise.

It was Hawke. “I’ll meet you at the police station,” she yelled through the window. “Cullen’s headed there now. Don’t say anything to Aveline or any of them until you talk to Cullen, okay?” 

A police officer came up behind her and chivvied her away, and Fenris could hear the muffled sound of Aveline’s scolding and Hawke’s cheerful retorts. Despite himself, he smirked. 

Then Varania spoke again. “You’re lucky, you know,” she said matter-of-factly.

His smile fell away, and he looked at her in disbelief. “ _Lucky?_ ” he demanded. “Danarius’s thugs almost killed me. They told me _you_ were dead. They forced me to become addicted to lyrium!” He hadn’t been ignoring Hawke’s words in the Hanged Man, and he was certain now that she was right about the lyrium. 

He glared at Varania. “How in the blasted Void can you say I am lucky?”

Her expression was twisted with bitterness. “You didn’t have to watch Mother dying slowly. You’ve travelled all around Thedas - I never even left Minrathous before this. And you have all these friends. Like _her_.” She jerked her chin in the direction that Hawke had gone. “ _Venhedis,_ I bet she would eat shit if you asked her to.”

His hackles instantly rose at the slur against Hawke. “Shut your mouth,” he snarled. 

Varania shot him a dirty look, then slumped down on the seat. “You think you’ve had it so bad. But from where I’m sitting, you got the better end of the deal.”

Fenris’s anger cooled as he studied her. She looked angry still, but… defeated, too. And now, without Danarius or any of his people to protect her, she was alone. 

He nibbled the inside of his cheek and didn’t reply. Then the two front doors opened. 

Aveline slid into the driver’s seat. She looked back at Fenris and Varania as her partner got into the passenger’s seat. “Remember, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law,” she warned. 

Fenris nodded silently, then glanced at Varania. Her expression was belligerent, but her bright green eyes were wet. She shot him a quick, resentful look, then turned away from him and rested her head on the window. 

Aveline started the car, and Fenris sighed heavily and leaned his head back on the seat in exhaustion. _What the fuck am I going to do?_ he thought. There was just so much to think about. There was his own situation; would he be accused of murder? What exactly had Varric’s tapes recorded, and would that be enough to acquit him? Then there was Varania’s predicament, and Fenris’s ambivalence about her. And then, as always since the first week he’d set foot in Kirkwall, there was Hawke: Hawke, who’d begged him not to shoot Danarius, and who seemed to stand by him even though he’d done it anyway.

He rubbed his forehead with his cuffed hands. _First things first,_ he reminded himself. He would talk to Cullen, and then he would have a better idea of what options he had.

And when he arrived at the police station, Hawke would be there. 

At that thought, his shoulders loosened. Fenris closed his eyes. He remembered the feel of Hawke’s trembling fingers on his face, and her sandalwood scent in his lungs when she’d hugged him. 

A minute later, lulled by peaceful thoughts of Hawke, the events of the past week finally caught up with him, and Fenris fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am [Pikapeppa on Tumblr,](https://pikapeppa.tumblr.com/) if you would like to come and squeal about Fenris with me! xoxo


	10. Please

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An enormous, heartfelt shoutout goes out to [@schoute's](https://schoute.tumblr.com/) husband, who helped me with the legal crap in this chapter. I am the Jon Snow of legal stuff (i.e. I KNOW NOTHING) and her husband WAS A TOTAL LIFESAVER. Anything legal in this chapter is 80% Schoute's husband and 20% Professor Google. And no, Kirkwall law is not the exact same as US law. Kirkwall is the Wild West, ok? (In others words: the law there is WHAT I FELT LIKE MAKING IT. SO THERE.)
> 
> Also: SMUT.

**Two weeks later…**

Rynne tucked her feet up on the couch in Cullen’s office as he spoke to Fenris and Varania. “The court hearing will be the deciding factor,” he said. “But as I told you before, I expect the charges will be dropped after a single session.” He looked at Fenris. “With the history of your flight from Danarius, combined with Varric’s CCTV footage and the testimony from all the witnesses, it’s clear that it’s a case of justifiable homicide. The second-degree murder charge was more to cover their bases than anything else.” 

“And after the hearing?” Fenris asked. “What happens then?” He glanced at Varania, who was sitting in a chair beside him with her arms folded.

“Assuming a positive outcome for us, you two will have some decisions to make,” Cullen said. He tapped his pen idly on his desk as he spoke. “Varania, you still aren’t sure where you’re going to go after giving your testimony. If you remain in the Free Marches, you’ll need to apply to become a permanent resident, like Fenris is planning to do. But if you choose to return to the Tevinter Imperium, the danger that places you in-”

“I don’t recommend it,” Fenris interrupted. 

“You’ve said that already,” Varania drawled. “At least a dozen times.”

Fenris pursed his lips in annoyance. Rynne made very brief eye contact with Cullen, then pulled out her phone and pretended to be interested in her Facebook feed. She’d witnessed this argument too many times in the past two weeks, and she was trying very, very hard not to interfere. It wasn’t her family, after all. It wasn’t her place to tell Varania she was being an idiot. 

Cullen tactfully cleared his throat. “If you do decide to return to the Imperium, I still may be able to help you. There is a particular Tevinter judge, a woman named Maevaris Tilani. I have worked with her once before on an international case, and I assure you,” and this he directed at Fenris, “that she is reliable and of sound judgment. She may be able to help keep Varania safe.” 

Fenris raised his eyebrows skeptically. Clearly Cullen had proposed this idea to him already, and his opinion was obvious from the look on his face. 

Varania, meanwhile, shifted in her chair. “Thank you, Cullen. I’ll… think about it.” She shot a quick look at Fenris, then folded her arms again. 

Cullen nodded an acknowledgement. “Fenris, meanwhile, will simply resume his normal life in Kirkwall.” Cullen looked askance at Fenris. “But I understand you were considering legally changing your name after you gain your residency.”

Rynne looked up from her phone. She wasn’t aware that he was thinking of changing his name. Why was he thinking of doing that?

Varania raised her eyebrows in equal surprise. “Change it to what?” she asked. “Are you going to keep ‘Fenris’, then?”

This made Rynne even more confused. “Wait. ‘Fenris’ isn’t your real name?” 

Varania snorted and settled more comfortably in her chair. “I guess there _is_ something he didn’t tell you, after all.”

Fenris shot his sister a disapproving look. Rynne stuck her tongue out at Varania, then moodily folded her arms. It was too bad, really; Rynne got the sense that she and Varania could have been friends in another lifetime - if Varania hadn’t tried to sell Fenris out to his murderous ex-boss, that is. Fenris might be willing to look past his sister’s betrayal, at least to some degree, but Hawke certainly wasn’t. 

Aveline had given Rynne and Fenris the option of pressing charges against Varania for reckless endangerment, but for Fenris’s sake, Rynne had declined. She knew too well the guilt that came with the accusation of harming a family member, and she wouldn’t wish that on anyone, least of all Fenris’s sister. 

“Let’s, er, stick to the matter at hand,” Cullen suggested delicately. “The bottom line is this: Varania, let me know as soon as you can what you wish to do. Fenris, stick to your bail conditions - no leaving the Free Marches, no changing your address, and obviously, no criminal activity. Break any of these conditions-” 

“... and Varric will call Aveline to bring me in, and he’ll break my legs for good measure,” Fenris deadpanned. He nodded respectfully to Cullen. “I understand.”

“I still think you should have made me your surety instead of Varric,” Rynne piped up. “I’d be much more fun. I’d even let you smoke elfroot in the house.” 

“Elfroot is legal in Kirkwall,” Cullen told her. 

She stared at him in surprise. “What? Since when?”

Cullen wilted in exasperation. “Since two months ago, Hawke. It was all over the news.”

Rynne waved her hand dismissively. “Oh come on, Cullen, you know I don’t watch the news. Well, guess what Fenris and I are going to go buy right after this?”

Fenris smirked. “Thank you, Hawke, but no. I prefer to avoid dubiously legal drugs.”

She shrugged and stretched out on Cullen’s couch. “Fine. Suit yourself.” She smiled as Fenris rolled his eyes. They both knew Rynne was just as unlikely to use recreational drugs as Fenris was, but it was still fun to get a rise from him.

Now if only she could get a different, more physical kind of rise from him as well. 

She pushed the errant wistful thought aside. It wasn’t the time to be thinking about where she and Fenris stood from a romantic perspective. He was far too preoccupied for her to bother him with juvenile blather about whether they could be together, now that he wasn’t planning to kill anyone anymore. 

_After his court date,_ she reminded herself. That was the timeline she’d privately decided upon for when she would ask Fenris to be with her. He was too busy juggling work and the murder charge and meetings with Cullen and sorting things out with bloody Varania to think about anything else, so Rynne could give him that time. 

To that end, though, it would be helpful to know when exactly his court date would be.

Almost as though he’d heard her thoughts, Cullen gave her and Fenris a pleading look. “Getting back on topic: Fenris, just follow your bail conditions and come to your court hearing. It is on…” He checked his calendar. “... Ferventis the 7th.” 

“Ferventis the 7th?” Rynne sat up in dismay. “That’s almost two months from now!”

Cullen frowned at her. “That’s extremely quick for the courts, Hawke,” he said. “If there were more doubt about Fenris’s case, the delay would be even longer. You should be pleased.”

“We _are_ pleased,” Fenris said hastily. He rose from his chair and extended his hand to Cullen. “You have been… unbelievably kind,” he said. “Thank you. From both of us,” he added, with a nod at Varania. 

Varania rose from her seat as well. “Yes. Thanks very much,” she said politely. 

Cullen firmly grasped their hands. “You’re very welcome. It’s my pleasure and my duty to help, truly.”

Rynne pushed herself up from the couch, then flung her arms around Cullen’s neck in a hug. “You’re the best,” she told him fondly. “Piper is the luckiest bitch in the world. I’ll make sure to tell her so. Then she can give you a proper reward for being the nicest man in Thedas.”

Cullen gently patted her back, and when Rynne pulled away, his cheeks were bright pink. “Yes, well, I - er - thank you, Hawke, that’s very kind.” He cleared his throat and scratched the back of his neck. 

Rynne chuckled at his bashfulness. She waved goodbye as she, Fenris, and Varania left his office. 

Once they were back on the ground floor of the Hightown high-rise, Rynne turned to Fenris. “Ready?”

“Yes, let’s go,” he confirmed. He turned to his sister. “I will see you… soon, I suppose.”

Varania shrugged and tucked her hands in her pockets in a gesture that forcibly reminded Rynne of Fenris. “Sure,” she said. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, she gave Fenris a quick hug. 

Rynne raised her eyebrows, and Fenris’s eyes widened with surprise as well. He briefly hugged her in return, and he and Rynne watched as Varania walked away. 

Rynne and Fenris followed her out into the late spring sunshine at a slow, relaxed pace. Then, as had become their routine in the past couple of weeks, they headed to Lowtown for coffee and tea at Athenril’s café. 

“Well, that was nice,” Rynne said blandly. “That hug.”

Fenris gave her a chiding look. “Hawke.”

She winced and tugged on her earrings. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry. I’m being a bitch. Varania’s been… pretty okay this past week especially.” She shrugged innocently. “I would just hate to have to punch her if she crosses you again, that’s all. I’m quite fond of my knuckles, you see.” 

Fenris _tsk_ ed at her feeble joke. More seriously, he said, “Varania and I have spoken at length about… everything that happened. She sees more clearly now how Danarius lied to us both.” He shrugged. “It is not perfect by any means, but I don’t think she’ll speak against me in court, for instance.” Then he shot her a little smirk. “Besides, as some insufferably flirtatious woman once said, blood is thicker than water.” 

Rynne batted her eyelashes. “Was that woman also incredibly beautiful and stunningly humorous?” she asked. “You should introduce me sometime.”

Fenris chuckled, but as they continued on their way to Lowtown, his expression fell into a pensive frown. He seemed uncertain, and Rynne didn’t blame him; Varania had been under Danarius’s wing for years, and Rynne didn’t think that kind of influence could be erased in the space of a couple of short weeks. But if Fenris wanted to rekindle a relationship with his sister, Rynne didn’t want to naysay him. He’d only ever been supportive Rynne’s endeavours to mend bridges with Carver, after all, and that had been going surprisingly well. Rynne thought that perhaps her brush with death might have made Carver realize that life was too short to hold grudges.

Now if only her mother would realize the same thing.

Rynne shrugged off the unpleasant thought, then tilted her face up to enjoy the springtime sun. It was too beautiful a day to think about her mother. The sun was bright and warm, she was wearing flip-flops for the first time this year, and best of all, the most handsome man in Thedas was walking by her side.

As always, Rynne was seized by the urge to reach out and hold Fenris’s hand. And as always, she forced herself to shove her hands in her pockets instead. _Just two months,_ she reminded herself. It wasn’t too long to wait.

And the self-imposed wait had _nothing_ at all to do with the little spike of fear that jumped in her belly at the thought of propositioning Fenris again. 

Her friends didn’t understand the wait. Isabela, for instance, thought Rynne was just being a coward. She’d made that quite clear this morning as Rynne was getting ready to leave the condo. 

“So remind me again,” Isabela yawned. “Why are you two still not fucking yet?”

“He’s got other things on his mind,” Rynne said, for what felt like the tenth time. She wandered over to the hall closet and pulled out her jacket. “The murder charge and his sister and-”

“No man in the history of the world has ever had too much on his mind for sex,” Isabela said loudly. 

Rynne tossed Isabela a chiding look, only to find all three of her roommates standing in the kitchen and staring at her with various degrees of skepticism on their faces. 

_Maker’s fucking mercy,_ she thought. She gave them a salacious smile. “Well well, look at this saucy lineup. I do love an audience.” She slowly bent over and showed off her ass as she picked up her flip-flops from the floor. 

Isabela laughed. “Sweet thing, you know we could stare at your ass all day. But you also know you’re being a pussy.” 

Rynne dropped the flirtatious act and shoved her feet into her flip-flops. “I am not. Pipes knows what I’m about. Right, Pipes?”

She looked over her shoulder, then wilted slightly as Piper shrugged. “I still think Fenris could use a good punch in the face for leaving you the morning after,” she said. “But… come on, Hawke. He spends all his spare time with you. And he spends all his time at the Hanged Man staring at you when you’re not looking. It’s pretty sickening, actually.” She pressed her lips together as though to hide a smirk. 

“Puppy eyes?” Merrill gasped. “Oh, Hawke, he must be in love! That’s so romantic.” 

“Romantic?” Isabela said indignantly. “Who said anything about romantic? I’m talking about a good, hard, we-almost-died survival fucking. Two weeks too late, sure, but-”

“Okay, bye everyone, have a great day!” Rynne called out cheerfully, and she fled the penthouse before they could give her any more unsolicited advice. 

Rynne knew they were wrong. She wasn’t being a coward. She was being cautious and giving Fenris his time. It only made sense to not tell him how she felt until she was sure he was in the right headspace to hear it. 

_Besides, why do I have to be the one to make the move?_ she thought mulishly. If Fenris wanted to be with her, he could just as easily be the one to initiate. Never mind that Rynne had never been shy about making an advance before. 

At that moment, Fenris’s lovely voice broke into her thoughts. “You seem preoccupied. Is there something on your mind?”

She smiled brightly up at him. “Who, me? Nope! Nothing at all. Blank slate up here, that’s me.” She tilted her head. “Why, what are you thinking about?” 

He paused thoughtfully before responding. “I was… wondering what it will be like to be free. Assuming the charges are dropped, of course.”

“They will be,” Rynne reassured him. Cullen was confident, and so was Varric, and Carver had told her in private that even Aveline felt that the charges were very unlikely to stick. 

Fenris nodded an acknowledgement. “At any rate, I… can’t recall what it’s like to be free. Not looking over my shoulder, not carrying that… that vitriolic hate.” He was quiet for a moment before speaking again. “The truth of my mother’s death is a new kind of burden,” he said quietly. “But Varania being alive, albeit a bit of a brat, is an unexpected boon. I still don’t quite know what to make of it.”

His face was creased in a deep frown, and Rynne studied him with a warm kind of ache in her chest. Then he shrugged and ran a hand over his hood. “There’s so much time now,” he said. “I don’t know what to do with it.” He looked at Rynne. “What do I do now, Hawke?”

She fought off an inconvenient urge to hug him. “You could travel, maybe,” she suggested. “Once you’re allowed to leave the Free Marches, that is. Is there anywhere you really want to go?”

“Truth be told, I have had enough of travel for some time,” he admitted. “What with the fleeing from Danarius…”

Rynne winced and smacked herself in the forehead. “Right. Obviously.” She awkwardly tugged her earrings, then shot him a cheeky smirk. “I’m still a bit surprised you want to stay in Kirkwall. I thought you hated it here, with the whole unequal-division-of-wealth thing. And the smell.”

“I do hate the unequal division of wealth,” he confirmed. “The contrast between Hightown and Darktown is absurd. The true character of any city is found among its poor. But… the smell is not so terrible. Not everywhere, at least. And Athenril’s coffee is very good.”

Hawke chuckled and pulled her sunglasses out of her purse. “Glad to know there’s something that you like about this city,” she teased.

“Mm. Indeed,” he grumbled. 

Hawke chuckled at his deadpan tone. She put her sunglasses on and glanced at him again, only to find him gazing at her with a thoughtful look on his face. 

Thoughtful and… quite intense, really. A leap of excitement and undeniable anxiety pulled at her belly, and she released a nervous little laugh. Maker’s balls, maybe she _was_ being a pussy. It wasn’t like her to be this meek. She’d certainly never been anything less than bold with any other person she’d been attracted to before. 

But Fenris wasn’t like any other man. Rynne had never fallen for anyone as fast and hard as she’d fallen for Fenris, and… well, if she was being brutally honest, it had never hurt so fucking much to be rejected as when Fenris had walked away from her. Her fantasies of being with him were in direct competition with her nightmares that he would tell her that now wasn’t the right time, or that he’d turn her down altogether… 

Her anxiety abruptly overrode her excitement. She tore her eyes away from his gorgeous green gaze and seized desperately upon a new topic. “So, changing your name?” she said. “What’s that about?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Ah. Well. ‘Fenris’ is not my legal name. It was a pseudonym given to me by Danarius’s gang.” He ran his hand over his hood again. “‘The Wolf’, they called me,” he said, then grunted in disgust. “A foolish nickname. Wolves hunt in packs, and… I worked alone.” He fell silent and looked away from her. 

Hawke bit her lip. Unable to resist, she reached out and gently squeezed his arm. 

He gave her a very small smile, and she smiled back at him before releasing his arm. “So… so are you thinking of keeping ‘Fenris’ as your legal name, then?”

He nodded. “Yes. It might seem strange, since I don’t particularly like the name, but I thought… well, all of my official documentation in Tevinter is under my old name. If I start over with a new name in the Free Marches…” He shrugged again. “Perhaps it will be my version of a fresh start. A clean break with the Imperium.”

“You’re sure you don’t want to reclaim your old name?” she asked gently. “Especially if you hate ‘Fenris’ so much.”

“I don’t… hate it,” he said slowly. “I have grown accustomed to it, I suppose. It is the name that all my acquaintances in Kirkwall know. And my legal name belonged to a very different man. A different… boy, really. I am not that boy anymore.” 

Again, he looked uncertain, and Rynne’s chest was squeezed by another surge of sympathy. _This_ was why she was holding back on gushing her feelings all over him. He had so many things to think about, and she didn’t want to add something else to his plate. 

He looked troubled. It was time to cheer him up. Rynne blinked innocently at him. “Well, whatever name you decide to keep, you should make a decision fast.”

He frowned at her. “Why?”

“So you can get a credit card,” Hawke said brightly. 

He raised one eyebrow suspiciously. “And why is it urgent that I do that?”

She punched him lightly in the arm. “So you can stop leeching off of me and Pipes’ Netflix account and get your own. I can’t binge the old episodes of _Gossip Girl_ because you’re in our account half the time.”

Fenris’s frown instantly transformed into a smirk. “You should consider that a favour. That show is insipid trash.”

Rynne gasped in mock offense. “And _Devilman Crybaby_ is any better? Don’t think I haven’t been checking out your viewing history.”

He lifted his chin in a dignified manner. “ _Devilman Crybaby_ explores the dichotomy of good and evil, and the way the two can intersect.” 

Rynne barked out an incredulous laugh. “It’s an anime where a guy has a wet dream and jizzes so hard that it hits the ceiling!”

“Ah, so you have been watching it then,” Fenris said shrewdly. “Don’t judge my viewing choices if you are guilty of making the same ones yourself.”

She elbowed him. “I was curious,” she retorted. “It’s a stupid show!” 

Fenris shrugged and tucked his hands into his pockets. “Stop watching it, then.” 

Rynne grinned at his smug little smirk. He knew she’d have to finish the series now that she’d started it.

They continued to bicker amicably during the rest of the walk. But as they stood in line at Athenril’s, something odd occurred to her.

She looked up at Fenris. “I just realized I didn’t ask you what your real name was. Or is, I guess.”

He smiled faintly. “It’s… Leto,” he said softly.

Rynne tilted her head. “Leto,” she said slowly. Her gaze drifted up to his face. “Leto, Fenris… I can’t decide which I like more. They’re both very handsome names.” 

She smiled cheekily at him, but to her surprise, his expression was serious and thoughtful. “Perhaps there’s no need to like one more than the other,” he suggested quietly. “Perhaps… perhaps they are akin to two sides of the same coin.”

His gaze on her face was pensive, and Rynne’s smile faded at the intensity of his expression. He was studying her carefully, as though _she_ was the interesting one, and suddenly her heart was beating in her ears. 

They stared at each other for a long moment, and Rynne couldn’t breathe. Then Fenris smiled. “It’s another dichotomy,” he said. “Not unlike in _Devilman Cryba-_ ” 

Rynne laughed and shoved his arm. “Oh, fuck off with your stupid devil-sex anime,” she said, equally relieved and disappointed as the tense moment melted away. 

Fenris chuckled, then nodded to Emile and ordered for them both. They chatted idly as they waited for his coffee and her tea, and when Emile slid their drinks across the counter, they meandered back out into the sunny spring day. 

They wandered around the Lowtown market, their attention primarily spent on talking and joking around rather than looking at the eclectic arts and crafts and organic homemade foodstuffs that were on sale. Once their drinks were finished, Fenris tucked his hands in his pockets and faced her. 

“So,” he said. He idly jangled his keys in his pocket. “I will see you at work, then.”

Rynne tapped the lid of her empty cup and nodded. “Yep. But before you go, I have a really important question.” 

Fenris frowned and stopped jangling his keys. “What? What is it?”

She took a deep breath and gazed seriously at him. “When will you be getting a smartphone? I’ve been dying to send you emojis and reaction gifs for _months_.”

He stared at her dumbly for a moment. Then a sudden, brilliant smile lit his face. “You’re an idiot,” he said, then pinched her waist. 

A warm flush of heat washed over her cheeks, and she squeaked and batted his fingers away. “Only for you, Fenris,” she giggled. “Only for you.” 

He shook his head and chuckled, then adjusted his hood over his hair and walked away with a casual wave.

Rynne watched him go with a smile on her face and her heart in her throat. He was barely out of her line of sight, and she missed him already. 

She took a deep breath, then turned away and headed home. _Just until Ferventis the 7th,_ she thought. After that, Rynne would make her move. 

Maybe by that time, she’d have racked up the guts to actually make it. 

**********************

Fenris strolled through the Hanged Man toward Varric’s office, then leaned against the doorjamb. “Good afternoon,” he greeted.

Varric looked up from his laptop, then smiled at Fenris over the top of his glasses. He gestured to an envelope on the corner of his desk. “It’s right there, elf.”

“Thank you,” Fenris said. He made his way into Varric’s cluttered office to pick up his biweekly pay. 

Varric watched him thoughtfully as he approached. “You have any interest in getting paid legitimately now? Join the rest of us taxpaying masses, now that you’ve decided to make our humble city your home?” 

Fenris huffed in amusement. “I will consider it. I must set up a Free Marcher bank account first. And that means getting my permanent residency…” He shrugged. “It may take some time.”

Varric nodded affably. “Suit yourself.” He gave Fenris a thoughtful look. “How are you doing?”

Fenris slipped his hands into his pockets and nodded. “Very well, thank you.”

Varric nodded slowly, almost as though he was hearing more than Fenris was telling him. “And that sister of yours? She’s doing okay?”

“Yes,” Fenris said cautiously. “Why do you ask?”

Varric smirked. “No need to be suspicious. Just wondering if she needs a job.” 

Fenris’s eyebrows rose. “Oh. Um. Perhaps,” he hedged. The offer was extremely generous; one of Varric’s finest traits, Fenris had noticed. But from a purely selfish perspective, Fenris wasn’t sure he wanted to work at the same establishment as his sister. 

Having Varania around was an odd combination of pleasant and painful. They’d been estranged for so long, and some of her more spoiled tendencies had grown more prominent with the privileges she’d enjoyed under Danarius’s influence. Furthermore, in his long conversations with Varania, it was becoming clear to Fenris that Danarius had genuinely fostered and relied upon his sister at a fairly high level of his business, and this - the obvious difference in their experiences with the deceased mob boss - often made it difficult for them to enjoy each other’s company. 

But the lies that Danarius had told them both were undeniable, and recognizing these lies was slowly melting Varania’s recalcitrant attitude. And Fenris did enjoy the rare pockets of time when they would banter and tease each other just the way they used to do. 

All the same, Fenris wasn’t sure he would be able to tolerate being around his sister that often. But it would be selfish and unkind to Varania to turn down a job offer on her behalf.

“I will ask her if she’d like to work here,” he finally said. 

“I didn't mean here,” Varric said. “I meant at Athenril’s.”

Fenris raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Athenril’s? How...?”

Varric shrugged. “I’m a partner there. I own half of Athenril’s business. Varania could work there if she wants.” He went back to his typing. “Having a little distance from siblings can be nice sometimes.” 

Fenris studied Varric with growing appreciation. The dwarf’s eyes and fingers were engaged with the laptop, but his lips were curled in a gentle little half-smile. 

Fenris bowed his head briefly. “Thank you, Varric. For… everything,” he said softly. “Truly. If ever I can repay you in some way...”

Varric waved his hand dismissively. “It’s nothing. Just keep showing up on time and looking after the ladies, and we’ll be just fine.” 

Fenris smiled. “That is easy enough.”

At that moment, there was a knock at the door, and Piper poked her head in. “Varric, look what I brought for you,” she sing-songed, and she wafted in with a boxed set of Blurays in her arms. 

Varric brightened as Piper placed the boxed set on his desk. “Ah! Thanks, Rowdy. I’ll use this to find proof of my theory about the Night King.” 

Piper snickered, and Fenris raised an eyebrow. “Is that the first seven seasons of _Game of Thrones_?” 

“Yes,” Piper confirmed. She shot him an appraising look. “Are you a fan?”

“I haven’t watched any of it,” he confessed. “I never got the chance.” 

Piper pursed her lips. “Well, maybe you’ll get a chance soon,” she said. Her tone was very slightly acidic, and Fenris gave her a quizzical look. 

She smiled at Varric. “See you later,” she chirped. She smiled slightly less warmly at Fenris as she passed him by, and then she was gone.

Fenris turned to Varric. “I can’t decide if she is fond of me, or if she despises me.”

Varric shifted the boxed set to the corner of his desk. “Ah, don’t mind her. She’s just concerned about Hawke.”

Fenris was instantly on alert. “Why?” he said sharply. “What’s happened to Hawke?” Was it something with her mother? He knew things were getting better with Carver, but from what Hawke had told him, Leandra was the same piece of work as she’d always been. 

Varric stared at him as though he was thick. Then he shook his head. “You’ve been hiding for a long time,” he said. 

Fenris frowned slightly at the non-sequitur. “Yes,” he said slowly. 

Varric tilted his head and studied Fenris for a moment. “Your shit got blown wide open,” he said bluntly. “Everyone who doesn’t already know your story will know it once you go to court. Or the parts of it that you and Cullen choose to tell, at least.” He shrugged and shuffled some papers on his desk. “I’m a little surprised you’re still trying to hide anything, that’s all.” 

Fenris frowned more deeply. “What do you mean?”

Varric looked up from his papers. “You know what I mean.” His gaze dropped to Fenris’s right wrist.

Fenris looked down. The edge of Hawke’s red scarf was poking out from beneath the sleeve of his jacket. 

He automatically shook his sleeve down to cover the scarf. “I’m not trying to hide anything,” he said defensively, then instantly realized the irony of what he’d just done. 

Varric smirked and shook his head, and Fenris scowled. “It’s none of your business,” he muttered. 

“You’re right,” Varric said lightly. “It’s not.” He went back to his typing. 

Fenris hunched his shoulders and glared at Varric. Varric was wrong. Fenris didn’t mean to hide his feelings for Hawke. He wasn’t even trying to hide them from Hawke herself. But ever since the shooting, every time he’d tried to coax the conversation toward the topic of their being together, Hawke would change it. 

Fenris wasn’t sure what to think of this. He and Hawke were spending more time together than they ever had before. She’d been accompanying him to all of his appointments with Cullen, and Fenris was grateful for her humorous presence. They often spent their spare afternoons together, and she’d returned to talking and flirting with him during his breaks at the Hanged Man. In many ways, things had gone back to the way they were before they’d ever slept together. Better, even, since she knew all of his secrets now, and they were able to talk more openly than they had before. 

But now, Hawke didn’t seem particularly interested in taking things any further than this limbo of lewd comments and flirtation, and Fenris wasn’t sure what had changed her mind. 

_Perhaps the fact that you slept with her and then broke her heart,_ a snide little voice whispered at the back of his mind. 

Fenris sighed and glanced at Varric. The dwarf was looking at his laptop screen, but Fenris got the sense that he was waiting. 

Fenris chewed his tongue for a moment. Then, finally, he spoke. “I… hurt her. Before all of this.” 

Varric glanced up over the top of his glasses. “I heard,” he said quietly. 

Fenris pursed his lips. Piper had probably told him. “Is everyone in this place always so interfering?” he grunted.

“Yep,” Varric said. He smirked. “If you’re sticking around, you’d better get used to it.”

Fenris huffed in annoyance. He was silent again for a minute before speaking. “It will never happen again,” he said, quietly but firmly. “I will never hurt her again.” 

Varric leaned away from the laptop and looked up at Fenris. “That’s nice,” he said. “Why are you telling me?” 

Fenris stared at him, and Varric stared back, and after a long moment, Fenris dropped his gaze and made his way toward the door. Just before he left Varric’s office, he turned back. 

“Thank you, Varric,” he said. 

Varric shrugged and adjusted his glasses. His eyes were on the laptop screen again. “For what? I didn’t do anything,” he said, and he tapped at his keyboard. 

Fenris smirked slightly. _Damned dwarf,_ he thought. Then he left the Hanged Man to take his cash home and get ready for tonight’s shift.

****************

Much later that night, after all the patrons had gone home and the cleaning staff were wiping the tables down, Fenris, Varric, and Cullen sat at a table watching as Piper and Hawke fought with the karaoke machine. It had stopped connecting with the microphones toward the end of the night, and for some reason, the two bartenders were hellbent on fixing it before going home. 

Fenris smirked and sipped his wine as Hawke jabbed at the laptop they used to control the machine. “Okay, it says it should be working now. Is it connected, Pipes?” she asked. 

“Of course,” Piper replied. “I’m not a complete dumbass.”

Hawke glanced over at Piper, who was crouched behind the machine, then rolled her eyes exaggeratedly. “I don’t mean the actual machine, I mean the mic. The one that’s in your fucking hand.” 

“Oh,” Piper said. Then she and Hawke burst into wild laughter.

Varric rubbed his forehead. “Come on, you two, some of us are looking forward to a good night’s sleep.” 

Cullen nodded tiredly. “Varric’s right. Please, Piper, I’d rather fall asleep in bed than at this table.”

“All right, all right,” Piper hiccuped. She delicately wiped her eyes, then checked her mic. “Okay, the light’s blue.”

Hawke glanced at the mic in her hand, then grinned at Piper. “Excellent, this one is too. Moment of truth: let’s try them out.” She raised her eyebrows expectantly at the elven bartender. 

Piper grimaced and shook her head vehemently. “No, I don’t want to.” She thrust the mic back toward Hawke. 

Hawke wilted. “Come on, Pipes,” she complained. “We need to check that they’re both working.” 

Piper waved the mic more insistently at Hawke. “ _You_ do it. Just swap between them!” 

Hawke tutted in annoyance and snatched the mic back from Piper. “Someday I’ll get you to sing with me,” she said, and she tapped around on the laptop for a song. 

Piper snickered as she rose to her feet, then traipsed over to Cullen and settled herself comfortably on his lap. “Not a chance. I’ll dance on the bar with you, but no singing.” 

Varric narrowed his eyes. “I thought I told you two not to dance on the bar anymore. Health and safety risk.” 

“We don’t,” Hawke said innocently. She shot Piper a distinctly shifty look.

Fenris chuckled quietly. He supposed it would be unkind to mention that Hawke and Piper had danced on the bar just two nights ago when Varric was away. 

Cullen, unfortunately, didn't quite catch the hint. He frowned at Piper in confusion. “I thought you told me that you’d done that routine from _Coyote Ugly_ -” 

“Oh Cullen, you must be so tired,” Piper interrupted loudly. “Someone needs his sleep.” She scratched behind Cullen’s ear in the manner that one would scratch a mabari, then shot Varric a sickly little smile. 

Varric gave her a reproving look, then glanced at Fenris. “Is it in your job description to throw the bartenders out if they’re being unruly?”

“Not yet,” Fenris said. “But it could be, if you wish.” He shot Hawke an amused look.

“Rude,” Hawke announced. “You know the party stops if me and Pipes aren’t there.” She winked at him, then turned her attention back to the laptop. 

A few seconds later, she smiled triumphantly and tapped decisively on the track pad. “Found my song,” she announced. 

The musical riff started up, and Fenris looked at Hawke in surprise. “This song?” he asked. It was an older song, and one he wouldn’t have expected from her, given her usual taste in music. 

She grinned at him. “I don’t only listen to electronica, you know. I’m not a complete heathen.” She shimmied her shoulders in time with the music, then lifted the mic to her lips and started to sing. 

_I don't know what it is that makes me love you so_   
_I only know I never want to let you go_   
_'Cause you started something, oh can't you see?_   
_That ever since we met, you've had a hold on me_   
_It happens to be true: I only want to be with you_

Fenris smiled into his wine. Hawke’s singing voice wasn’t perfect, but what she lacked in musical talent was completely overshadowed by showmanship. She swayed in perfect time with the music, and she winked and hammed it up with the lingering cleaning staff until they were chuckling, and… 

And she was utterly captivating. The longer Fenris watched her, admiring the gentle twisting of her hips and the delicate way she brushed her fingers along her collarbone as she sang, the stronger his pulse seemed to beat until it felt like his heart was filling his entire rib cage with its rhythm. 

The song she’d chosen was perfect. It was a perfect reflection of the way he felt. As Fenris stared at Hawke, wine glass forgotten in his fingers and attention ensnared as Hawke switched smoothly from one mic to the other, he realized that every lyric she sang was true.

_I just want to be beside you everywhere_   
_As long as we're together, honey, I don't care_   
_'Cause you started something, oh can't you see?_   
_That ever since we met, you've had a hold on me_   
_No matter what you do, I only want to be with you_

Hawke finished her song and glanced at him with a smile. Her copper eyes latched onto his, and Fenris stared stupidly at her. Her eyes, her beautiful amber eyes, they were like a trap: he was falling into them, falling deeper into their clear and lucid depths with his every shallow breath and every pulsing beat of his heart.

No, that was incorrect. _Falling_ implied an ongoing action, when the truth was that Fenris had fallen for her long ago. Hawke was a lure, an exquisite and enticing lure that had tempted him out of hiding, pulling him free from his secrets and his past and capturing his wounded heart. She’d enticed him with her humour and her candid confessions, flirting with him and supporting him and _wanting_ him despite everything he’d been and done. Hawke had opened her arms and offered herself to him, unfurling her open heart like a net, and though she didn’t know it, Fenris was utterly tangled in her. 

He _needed_ her to know it, though. He needed her to know how he felt. He had the distinct possibility of a future now, a whole life in front of him where nothing was planned and everything was possible, but none of it meant anything if he and Hawke weren’t facing it together.

Hawke licked her lips nervously, then released a little laugh. “Fenris, are you okay?” 

He swallowed hard, then rose from his chair and held out one hand. “Give me that microphone.” 

Her eyes widened comically. “Huh?” she blurted.

He walked toward her and gently took the mic from her fingers. “You always ask me to sing. I’m going to sing you something now,” he said quietly. He stepped up onto the stage, then tapped at the laptop and began to search for the song he wanted. 

He was acutely aware of the sudden silence in the pub; nobody was talking, and even the gentle sounds of cleaning had stopped. The intensity of everyone’s attention made his skin crawl, but he refused to look up from the laptop. He had to do this. Once he did this, there would be no mistaking his intentions. 

He flicked swiftly through the karaoke catalogue and found the song he needed, then self-consciously cleared his throat as the strum of a guitar floated from the speaker. Then, in the strongest voice he could muster, Fenris began to sing. 

_Good times for a change_   
_See, the luck I've had can make a good man turn bad_   
_So please, please, please_   
_Let me, let me, let me_   
_Let me get what I want this time_

_Haven't had a dream in a long time_   
_See, the life I've had can make a good man bad_   
_So for once in my life, let me get what I want_   
_Lord knows, it would be the first time_   
_Lord knows, it would be the first time_

As the song drifted to a melancholy close, Fenris lifted his eyes from the stage. Varric’s eyebrows were high on his forehead, and Cullen and Piper’s faces were slack-jawed with surprise, but Fenris only cared about Hawke. 

Her eyes were huge and shining, and her hands were clasped over her mouth. As Fenris watched, a tear slipped down her cheek. 

She swiftly wiped the tear away with her fingers, and beneath her hands, Fenris saw that she was grinning. A dizzying thump of relief pulled his heart from his throat back into his chest, and he extended one hand to her. “Come here,” he said. 

She shoved herself up from her seat. Seconds later, her arms were tight around his neck, and the newly-repaired mic clattered from his fingers to the floor as he pulled her close. 

“You sang for me,” she breathed. “Fenris, that… that was amazing.” 

He smoothed his hands from her waist up to her back. “Hawke, you know I never thought about the future,” he whispered. “I never planned for it or expected it to bring anything of joy. I… I should not count on a future now, not before the hearing-” 

She shook her head. “The hearing will be fine. I know it will.”

He cradled her jaw in his palm. “We can’t be sure of that. But I am sure of this: if there is a future to be had, I will walk into it gladly at your side.” 

If possible, Hawke’s brilliant smile grew even wider. Fenris traced the edge of her raspberry-red lips with this thumb, and at long last, he allowed himself the privilege of kissing her. 

“Fucking finally!” Piper exclaimed, and there was the sound of clapping - probably from the cleaning staff - but Fenris didn’t care. Hawke’s fingers were tight in his hair and at the back of his neck, and his arms were tight around her waist, and every part of his body was thrumming to life at the warm and steady press of her lips. 

Some indefinable time later, Varric’s sardonic voice filtered through the haze of Fenris’s dizzying joy. “All right, all right, go home, both of you. Get outta here. You’re fogging up the windows.” 

Hawke slowly leaned away from Fenris and glanced at Varric. “There are no windows in this dump.”

Varric raised an eyebrow. “Do you want to insult my pub, or do you want to go home?”

“Shutting up and going home,” Hawke chirped. “See you later, everyone!” She grabbed Fenris’s hand and pulled him toward the exit. 

As soon as they were outside, she pressed herself against him and curled her fingers against his chest. “What now?” she breathed. “Yours or mine? Cab or walk?” 

“Mine,” he said. “And I would prefer to walk, if you can tolerate the wait.” He was hungry for Hawke, hungry for the feel of her skin sliding against his own, but he wanted this time with her to be utterly unlike the last. 

The last time they were together, he’d pawned off his behaviour on the booze. He hadn’t been drunk by the time they were in Hawke’s bed, but he’d used the alcohol as a feeble excuse in the cold light of day. He’d wanted Hawke even then, wanted her as badly as he wanted her now, but Fenris didn’t want her mistaking his desire for anything so frivolous as a fling. 

This time would be different. This was more than a long-awaited release of lust, and Fenris wanted to prove it to her. 

She smiled up at him. “Honestly, Fenris, I would wait for you forever. I’m glad I don’t have to,” she smirked, “but I would. I mean that.”

Her smile was sultry, but her eyes were serious, and Fenris gently kissed her smiling lips. “Then I won’t make you wait any longer than we must,” he whispered.

They set off toward his apartment at a brisk walk. Hawke chattered happily about various things as they walked - Varric’s new novel idea and Isabela’s fabulous new dress and Merrill’s terrible new recipe - and Fenris understood why she was talking so much; she was trying to fill the space between them, this warm and expectant space that would soon be filled with something far more substantial than just air and talk, and he appreciated her attempts to distract from the delicious torturous tension that was brewing between them.

But her efforts at distraction were spoiled by something else - something that should have been entirely innocuous: Hawke was holding his hand. Their fingers were twined together as they walked, and the pad of her thumb was sliding along the edge of his, and Fenris’s attention was increasingly drawn to her touch. Her fingers were constantly on the move, sliding slowly between his own as though to savour the gaps between them, then slipping down his palm as her thumb smoothed higher along his wrist, and… 

It was unexpectedly arousing. Fenris inhaled slowly as her fingers traced along the back of his hand, her fingertips stroking his knuckles as though to memorize their shape. The gentleness in her touch and the care that it implied, like she was mapping every inch of his hand with her fingers: Fenris hadn’t felt anything like this before. He’d never allowed anyone close enough to lavish this slow and focused kind of touch on any part of his body. And here was Hawke, stroking his hand so thoroughly as they walked down the street, and with every gentle pass of her fingers, his need for her continued to swell.

She curled her fingers and ran her nails along his palm, and Fenris exhaled heavily. “Hawke…” 

“Yes?” she said. 

She was idly stroking the back of his hand again. He abruptly pulled her to stop, then lifted her wicked hand to his mouth and pressed his lips to her knuckles. “You’re driving me mad,” he growled. “These hands of yours…” 

“But I’m not doing anything,” she protested breathily. Then she gasped as Fenris nipped her wrist with his teeth. 

He brushed his lower lip along her thumb, then lifted his eyes to her face. Her eyes were wide, her pupils huge from darkness and desire, and Fenris couldn’t help himself: he swiftly captured her parted lips in a kiss. 

She whimpered into his mouth and pressed herself against him from chest to hips, and Fenris clenched his fingers in the back of her leather jacket. Her hips were pressing close to his, and her tongue was tracing his lips, and _venhedis_ , they were only a block away from his apartment. So close, so damned close, but Hawke was even closer, and he couldn’t tear himself away from her.

Thankfully, she broke away from him and stroked his chin with her thumb. “Should we run?” she breathed.

“Yes,” he said. His fingers were beneath the hem of her jacket, and the dip of her lower back was maddeningly smooth beneath his palm, but he forced himself to release her. 

She grabbed his hand again, this time with more purpose than before, and they sprinted the last block hand-in-hand. By the time they reached his building, Hawke was laughing and Fenris was breathless, but it wasn’t from the run. 

She turned toward him with pinkened cheeks and dancing eyes. “The final home stretch!” she said. “Come on, get your keys out-”

He crowded her back against the door to his walk-up. “In a minute,” he growled, and he coaxed her lips open with another hungry kiss. 

Her tongue was so damned sweet as it tangled with his own, but the needy mewl that left her throat was even sweeter still. Her fingers were twisting in the back of his jacket, and her thigh was sliding up against his hip, and Fenris gasped as one of her hands snuck into the pocket of his trousers. 

“Hawke,” he protested weakly. Her fingers against his thigh through the thin fabric of his pocket, sliding closer to his cock, _fasta vass_ \- it was too much. 

He grabbed for her wrist. “Not here,” he panted. “Just… just wait-” 

She pulled her hand out of his pocket. His housekeys were dangling from her fingers. “I don’t want to wait,” she said, and she grinned at him. “Don’t mind if I let myself in.” 

Fenris stared at his keys, then huffed in amusement as Hawke turned around and started unlocking the door. He brushed the tufty hair away from her nape. “You are the only one I have ever let in,” he murmured, then nipped the tender skin of her neck.

She hissed in a breath at the bite of his teeth, then smiled cheekily at him over her shoulder as she pushed open the door. “I don’t blame you. Your place is a little too small for parties.” She began to run up the stairs. 

Fenris caught up to her on the third floor landing and pulled her to stop with a gentle hand on her wrist. “I mean it, Hawke,” he said. “I have never… I meant what I said that night. That first night we were together.” 

She gazed up at him with those wide copper eyes that he so adored. “What do you mean?”

He stepped close to her and brushed her bangs from her eyes. “I have never allowed anyone too close,” he told her. “The distance I kept, the privacy… I thought it necessary to survive.”

Her expression grew serious at his words. “It was,” she said. “It _was_ necessary. You were on the run.”

He traced her silver-laden ear with his thumb. “Yet somehow you managed to slip past my defenses,” he said. “I never… no one ever did that before. Truth be told, no one ever tried.” He cupped her cheek in his palm. “You let yourself in, Hawke. You… you had so many warning signs. But you let yourself in anyway.”

She shyly lowered her eyes. “I know,” she said. “I’m a bit stupid that way, I suppose. But I just…” She shrugged. “I just wanted to know you. And then when I did, I just… wanted you.” She smiled up at him, and Fenris admired the pinkening of her cheeks as she laughed and rubbed her nose. “Ah, I’m just saying crap…”

“It is not crap,” he said. He gently took her hand and led her down the hall toward his studio apartment. “You have always been clear about what you want. I am the one whose intentions were unclear. I hope you can forgive me.”

Hawke squeezed his hand. “It’s okay, Fenris. Honestly. It’s… really, I understand.” 

Her face was so open, her copper eyes so candid and bright, and Fenris loved her so much he almost couldn’t stand it. He pinned her against the door to his studio and pressed himself close to her, so close that he could feel the heat of her skin through the thin fabric of her shirt. 

He slipped his hands into her short dark hair. “I am yours,” he whispered. “For as long as you want me, Hawke, I am yours.” 

She beamed at him, and Fenris admired the flushing of her cheeks. Then, unable and unwilling to resist, he kissed her smiling lips. 

Hawke cupped his jaw in her palm, and without breaking their kiss, Fenris took his keys from her free hand. He fumbled at the lock, clumsily slotting the key into place while Hawke licked his lower lip, and at long last, they stumbled into his apartment. 

He reluctantly broke their kiss to lock the door behind them. When he turned back toward her, she pushed him back against the door and fell against his chest. 

Her fingers were tugging at his jacket, pushing it away from his shoulders, and Fenris exhaled eagerly as she pressed her hip against his groin. 

“Take this off,” she panted. She pulled insistently at his jacket, then plucked at his T-shirt. “I want everything off.” 

Fenris wordlessly obeyed, shucking off his jacket before dragging off his shirt. Hawke smoothed her hands along his bare arms, then ran her fingers over the crimson scarf on his right wrist. 

She smiled cheekily at him. “This can stay on,” she murmured. “I’ll allow it.” 

He smirked as she kissed the corner of his jaw. “So much for ‘taking everything off’,” he quipped. 

She laughed softly against his cheek. “Everything else can come off,” she purred. “But I do quite like the idea of you keeping a little piece of me on your wrist.” Then her slender hands slid up along his abs.

He inhaled sharply at her touch. Her eyes were on his body, tracing the path of her fingers as they smoothed across his pecs. Then she dipped her head to lick his nipple, and Fenris gasped and arched toward her. 

Hawke chuckled softly, then tugged his nipple with her lips and fumbled at his fly, and Fenris leaned heavily against the door as she traced the tiny peak with her tongue. “ _Fasta vass,_ ” he groaned. 

She gently bit his nipple, then smiled mischievously at him. “What does _that_ mean?”

Fenris took her chin in his hand. He lifted her face and slid his fingers gently down from her chin to encircle her throat. “It means, ‘I want to strip you bare and seat you on the table’,” he rasped. He walked her back toward the table with his hand still at her throat. 

Hawke was panting now, sharp and eager breaths through her parted lips, and when her back hit the table, she arched her chest toward him. “Wow,” she gasped. “That’s impressive. Tevene is such a pithy language.”

“Indeed,” he growled, and he slid his free hand beneath the hem of her top. 

Her panting grew sharper still, her throat rising and falling against his palm, and when he slid his hand over her breast, she gasped again. “Mm, please!” she whined.

_Blasted bra,_ Fenris thought. He could feel her nipple through the cup, but it wasn’t enough. He wanted the bare and pebbled peak against his greedy fingertips.

He slid his thumb along the line of her jaw and brushed her lower lip. “I want you naked,” he whispered. 

She nodded eagerly, divesting herself swiftly of her jacket while she kicked aside her flats, and Fenris released her throat so she could pull off her top. As soon as her top was gone, he lowered his mouth between her breasts. 

She gasped and arched her chest toward him, then pressed her hips toward his fingers as he unbuttoned her jeans. “Fenris,” she begged, and she twined her fingers in his hair as he flicked his tongue inside the cup of her bra. 

He didn’t reply. His tongue was busy seeking her nipple, and his lips were preoccupied with the softness of her skin, and then his hands - ah, they were busy too, unfastening her bra and tossing it aside, peeling her jeans away from her hips and pushing down her underpants, sliding up the inside of her thigh… 

He stroked her slippery heat with two fingers, and Hawke tilted her hips helplessly toward his hand. “Yes!” she gasped.

Fenris brushed his lips over her collarbone, then across her ear. “On the table,” he whispered. 

Hawke swiftly seated herself on the table, and Fenris sat in a chair and carefully pushed her legs apart. She leaned back on her palms as he spread her wide, and he greedily studied her naked form. Hawke was a bursting riot of colour: chestnut hair and ruby lips and the dusky pink between her legs, all overlaid with her soft and golden skin. She was an eruption of warmth, a secret ingredient that somehow made this apartment more than the stark and sterile room it had been before, and for a moment, Fenris just sat enjoying the sight of Hawke splayed across his table. 

His leisurely gaze slid up to her face. Then, without looking away, he slipped two careful fingers inside of her. 

Her heated amber eyes instantly glazed with pleasure, and her hips rose toward his hand. “Oh fuck,” she moaned. 

He watched her carefully, admiring the twisting rapture in her face and the twisting lines of her abs as he delved his fingers deep, and then his mouth joined in the mix, his tongue finding the center of her pleasure as his lips swept up the slickness that his fingers had found.

Hawke mewled in ecstasy and parted her thighs wider still. “Fuck it, Fenris, I really like this,” she whined. 

He swept his tongue around her clit, then briefly lifted his mouth. “I can tell,” he purred, then returned to his ministrations. 

She burst out a breathless little laugh. “Such a smooth reply - _ah!_ Did you practice that little line for when you’d get me here?”

He paused and shot her a sardonic look. “Hawke, do you want me to talk, or do you want me to continue?” 

“Ooh, so many good options - no, no, I’m joking!” she blurted, as Fenris leaned away with a chiding smirk. She lifted her hips pleadingly toward him. “Come back, please, I want you to finish.” 

“And I want _you_ to finish,” Fenris grumbled. He lowered his mouth to her pussy once more and placed an open-mouthed kiss between her legs. He breathed her in, taking her musky scent deep into his lungs as he kissed her swollen little bud, then sliding his tongue along the length of her cleft.

He carefully curled his fingers inside of her, and she gasped. Her thigh was tensing beneath his free hand, and her hips were moving more jerkily against his face, and within the space of a minute, Hawke was arching into his face and crying out her rapture. 

Fenris kissed her slick and heated flesh until she settled onto the table once more. He barely had time to wipe his mouth on Hawke’s thigh before she slid off the table and grabbed his hand. 

He stumbled to his feet and followed her to the bed, and then she was pushing him onto the bed and straddling him and shoving at the waistband of his trousers all at the same time. She pushed at his shoulders and crawled toward him, forcing him to shuffle back toward the head of the bed, and when his back hit the wall, she unzipped his fly and kissed him hard.

She fingers snuck inside his pants. “Take these off,” she whispered. Her hand slid past his shaft to cup his balls, and Fenris gasped into her mouth. Then she was stroking his length, her fingers sliding smoothly over the head of his cock, and Fenris lifted his hips and pushed his pants down so she could hold him more easily.

“Much better,” she purred. Then she took his cock in a firm grip. 

He groaned and slid his hand into her hair, and then she was stroking him and he was panting against her lips and lifting his pelvis toward the heavenly juncture of her thighs -

And then he remembered something awful. 

He winced and cradled her jaw. “Hawke… Hawke, wait.”

Her pumping hand grew still. “Why? What’s wrong?” she asked. 

He gritted his teeth in frustration, then leaned his head back against the wall in defeat. “I don’t have… there are no condoms here,” he admitted. A furious string of Tevene curses spun through his mind at his own stupidity. It was one thing to want Hawke in his apartment, but it was another thing altogether to be prepared for her presence. Clearly he’d been too preoccupied to keep the practicalities in mind.

“Oh!” she chirped. “That’s okay.” To Fenris’s surprise, Hawke hopped off the bed, and Fenris watched as she hurried over to her purse. She rifled around inside of it for a moment, then triumphantly pulled out a box of condoms. 

Fenris’s eyes widened as she skipped back over to the bed. “That is… extremely fortunate,” he marveled. Then he smirked teasingly at her as she crawled back onto his lap. “I hope I’m not depriving some other man of these.” 

She scoffed and playfully smacked his chest. “No, you handsome fool. I picked them up as a favour for Isabela, but I’m sure she’ll understand. She knows how long I’ve been waiting to love you.”

Fenris’s eyes snapped to her face. He must have misheard. “What was that?” he said. 

Hawke gave him a quizzical look, then her mouth dropped open as she realized what she’d said. All at once, her cheeks went utterly red. “Oh balls,” she blurted. “I meant to say ‘fuck’. I mean, not to say I don’t love… I mean… oh Maker.” She covered her face. “That’s fucking embarrassing. I didn’t mean to say that so soon, _argh_...” 

Fenris peeled her hands away from her flaming cheeks. “Is it true?” he asked. 

She ducked her head and winced as though she’d done something punishable. “Yes…? Sorry,” she blurted. “It’s - sorry, I know it’s only been like three months, you must think I’m crazy. You don’t have to say anything, pretend you didn’t hear that.” She suddenly grabbed his neck and kissed him hard. 

Fenris accepted her kiss, but he wouldn’t be distracted this time. He gently pulled away from her lips. “Hawke, have you been listening to a word I’ve said? I am in love with you,” he said. 

She gaped at him, and Fenris watched with a rush of fondness as a huge grin lit her face. She let out a scintillating laugh, then covered her cheeks with her hands again. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I quite heard you,” she said. “Can you say that again?”

Fenris scoffed and playfully pinched her waist. “I’m in love with you, you idiot,” he drawled. “Does that satisfy you?” 

“Yes, it does,” she proclaimed. She slid her arms around his neck. “And thank fuck, honestly. Because I love you, too.” 

Fenris grinned, and Hawke beamed at him and pressed her lips to his cheekbone. She kissed his cheek, then the edge of his ear. “I love you, Fenris,” she whispered.

Her tongue traced the very edge of his earlobe, and a shiver of excitement trickled down the back of his neck at the delicate touch of her tongue. Her hands were on the move again, smoothing over his pecs and down to his abdomen, and then his attention was drawn straight to the juncture of her thighs as she lowered herself close to his cock. 

She rubbed herself against him, spreading her sweetness along the length of his shaft, and Fenris inhaled sharply and grabbed her hips to pull her close. Hawke undulated against him in a torturous rolling grind, then took one of his hands and pulled his fingers from her abs up to her ribs, and Fenris gaped at the curvature of her body as she arched her back and pressed her breast into his hand. 

Her nipple was hard against his palm. _Kaffas,_ he wanted to feel it against his teeth. “Hawke, I need you now,” he panted.

She rubbed herself against him for a moment longer, then reached over to the box of condoms. Without breaking her rolling rhythm, she pulled a condom from the box, and Fenris bit his tongue to control his impatience as she pulled the condom out of the packet and lifted her hips to roll it onto his cock.

Then Fenris gasped and grabbed the back of her neck. He was inside of her, sheathed all the way to the base of his shaft, and he breathed hard against the corner of her lips as she ground herself against him.

Hawke slowly lifted herself away from his lap, and Fenris rose with her, lifting his hips pleadingly to try and meet her. “Hawke,” he begged. “Come here, I need you…”

She slowly lowered herself back onto his length, and he hissed in a breath at the exquisite tightness of her. Then she pressed her lips to his ear. “Let me do this,” she breathed. “Let me love you.”

Her fingers trailed along his jaw, and her hips rolled against him in a slow and sinuous grind, and Fenris nodded. “Yes,” he whispered. There was no other answer he could give. He was helpless beneath her, trapped by the heat of her body and her hands and her breath against his ear. His hands were on her hip and her back, moving with her as she curved and arched against him, but Fenris was under no illusions about his role in this: he was in her thrall, pulled along in the unstoppable waves of Hawke’s shifting body, and any way that Hawke wanted him was exactly what he wanted too. 

She swayed toward him, lifting and lowering her hips in a rhythm that somehow seemed to match his breath, and soon he was gasping and gripping her shoulder blades, trying to pull her closer as she fucked him with a gradually rising speed. Her hands were in his hair, and her pert little breasts swayed toward his face as she moved against him, and when he finally took her nipple in his mouth, she released a pleasured little cry that resonated through his chest.

He suckled her nipple until she mewled, then lifted his chin in a silent plea. Hawke lowered her face and slanted her lips over his, and Fenris groaned happily against her tongue. The rhythm she’d found was perfect, pulling at his pleasure with the pressure and the pace and the curl of her pelvis, and Fenris gasped more fitfully against her lips with every thrust. His rapture was rising as she rode him, tightening and tuning his body like the string of a guitar, and when his pleasure grew so taut that it finally snapped, he gasped and buried his face against Hawke’s fragrant neck. 

He shuddered and pressed his teeth against her shoulder, and Hawke cried out sharply, craning her neck to the side so he could bite the tender line of her neck. Her body continued to rise and fall, dragging every last scrap of pleasure from his core, and when she finally fell still, Fenris trailed his lips from her neck up to her jaw. 

He stroked the line of her jaw and gently kissed the corner of her smiling mouth. “Will you stay the night?” he whispered. 

Her smile widened, and she brushed her nose against his own. “Joke’s on you,” she murmured. “I’ve already invited myself to stay. You have no choice in the matter.”

Fenris smirked and pinched her waist again, and she squeaked in amusement and rolled off of his lap. A moment later, they were settled in his blankets face-to-face, and Hawke’s knee was burrowing between his thighs for warmth, and Fenris sank into the peace of this moment with a contented sigh. 

The next two months would be tense. Confident though Cullen might be about the outcome of the hearing, Fenris knew he might have to go to jail to await a trial if the murder charge wasn’t dropped, and the ugly possibility had kept him up at night since Danarius’s death. 

But tonight was different. Tonight, Hawke was here. She was here in his bed, her tousled hair on his pillow and her sandalwood scent in his sheets, and for the first time in weeks - in years, if he was honest - Fenris felt his tension and his worries floating carelessly away as he slid into slumber. 

Hawke was here, with her incessant jokes and her clumsy proclamations of love and her unwavering support. Fenris was bolstered by her, held up by her humour and emboldened by her hope, and with Hawke at his side, he would walk into whatever future was thrown his way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- The song that Rynne sings is ["I Only Want To Be With You" by Dusty Springfield.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osVaF4t-zFc)  
> \- The song that Fenris sings is ["Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want" by the Smiths.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-T8R_VDTOYQ)  
> \- I actually highly recommend _Devilman Crybaby_ , if you're at all into anime. It's weird as FUCK and totally NSFW, and a dude really does jizzes so hard that it hits the ceiling, but it's emotional and angsty as hell. 
> 
> I am [Pikapeppa on Tumblr,](https://pikapeppa.tumblr.com/) if you want to squeal about Fenris with me! xo


	11. Free

**Two months later…**

Rynne straightened the pile of mail on Leandra’s kitchen table while she chattered at Carver. “The cable, wifi, and phone are set to auto-pay next week, so that shouldn’t be a problem,” she said. “If anything happens to Mom’s credit cards while I’m away-” 

“She’ll just call the number on the back of the card,” Carver said in exasperation.

“That’s what any logical person would do, yes,” Rynne said blandly. “However, the last time she had an issue with her card, guess who got a hysterical phone call at ten in the morning on her day off?”

Carver pursed his lips and didn’t reply. Rynne glanced into the living room where Leandra was talking to Gamlen on the phone, then pulled Carver along with her toward the front door. 

“I stocked the fridge and the freezer last night,” she said quietly. “So if she harps at you about that, don’t believe it. Everything she needs for three weeks is there.” 

“Uh-huh,” Carver said flatly. 

Rynne ignored his tone and pulled her phone from her purse. “I sent you an email with a list of contact info. In case she calls you complaining about the stove, or the fridge, or-”

“Rynne,” Carver said loudly. “I got your email. And I saw the list you put in the kitchen. Just go on your bloody vacation already.”

She exhaled heavily, then smiled at him. “Right. Yes. Okay!” She reached up and hugged her baby brother. “Thanks, Carv. You’re a star for stepping in.”

He hugged her back. “Don’t thank me,” he said as he pulled away. “I should’ve been helping since before… you know.” He gestured awkwardly toward the house, then gave her a pointed look. “ _You_ should have told me what was going on sooner. With Dad and the bills and everything.” 

Rynne rolled her eyes and shrugged. There was no point squabbling about who should have done what. Carver was putting in his fair share of the household work now, and that was all that really mattered.

She opened the front door and stepped out onto the porch, and Carver followed her out. “Mom’s not as helpless as you think, you know,” he said quietly. “She called a plumber just the other day, all by herself.” 

Rynne smirked. “And did she call you first so you could tell her who to call?”

“No,” Carver said. “I showed up here, and a plumber was upstairs fixing the toilet on the second floor.”

Rynne raised her eyebrows in genuine surprise. “Wow,” she said. “That’s… impressive. For Mom, at least.” The second floor bathroom’s toilet had been on the fritz for months. Leandra had been insistent that Rynne or Carver needed to be present when the plumber came, and Rynne hadn’t been able to figure something out with her schedule, especially since the problem was far from urgent.

But it looked like it was fixed. For now, at least.

At that moment, Leandra appeared at the door. “Rynne, love, before you go - take this with you.” She offered Rynne a book.

Rynne took the book. It was a dog-eared copy of _Swords and Shields_. “Mom, this is my book,” she said. 

“I know that,” Leandra said. She gave Rynne a reproving look. “No need to be shirty with me. I’m returning it to you. It’s a very good read for the beach.” 

Rynne smiled and relaxed slightly. “You know what, that’s true. Thanks.” 

Leandra smiled as well. “Have a lovely holiday,” she said. “Make sure you wear sunscreen. Both of you.” Then she glanced toward the convertible that Rynne had rented for her trip. 

Rynne looked over at the car as well. Fenris was standing there, leaning against the hood with his arms folded. His sunglasses rendered his neutral expression even more stern than usual, but as Rynne met his gaze, he smiled. 

She smiled back at him. He was wearing his usual black jacket despite the warm weather, but he’d abandoned his hoodie, and his pure white hair glinted in the afternoon sun. He looked so casual and relaxed, just lounging there against the car, and he was so damned handsome that it made her heart swell just to look at him.

Rynne turned back to her mother and tried to wrestle the goofy expression off of her face. “Thanks, Mom. We will,” she said, and she leaned in to kiss her mother’s cheek.

Leandra patted Rynne’s hand as she pulled away. “You be careful, darling,” she whispered. “You never know with these types.” 

_Oh, for fuck’s sake,_ Rynne thought, but she bit her tongue to hold back the curse. She and Carver had explained Fenris’s situation to Leandra, with emphasis on the fact that Fenris had killed a criminal to save Rynne’s life, but Leandra continued to believe the whole debacle was somehow Fenris’s fault. 

Rynne shrugged it off. She couldn’t be bothered to argue with Leandra right now, not when Fenris was waiting for her and the road to Rivain was calling their names. 

She turned to Carver, who shot her an apologetic grimace before giving her another quick hug. “Bye, sis.”

“Bye,” she said. She pinched Carver’s cheek, and he wrinkled his nose and swatted her hand away. Rynne laughed, then skipped back to the car where Fenris was waiting.

His smile widened as she approached, and she happily pressed herself against his chest. “Obligatory family visit complete,” she announced quietly. “Carver has everything in hand. Now let’s get the fuck out of here.”

“Lead the way,” he said, and he sauntered around to the passenger’s side door.

Rynne slid into the driver’s seat and started up the car. She plugged in her phone and smiled at Fenris as he slipped into his seat. “You sure you don’t want to drive?” she asked.

“I’m certain,” he said. “I am more than happy to let you take the wheel.” 

Rynne grinned. “All right, but the driver gets to pick the music.”

“Ah,” Fenris said. “If that is the case…” He reached over and tried to take her phone away.

She jerked the phone out of his reach, then squealed when he pinched her waist. She batted at his hand and tucked her phone protectively toward her chest. “Hands off! You had your chance,” she giggled. “Dubstep it is.” 

Fenris turned away and reached for the door handle. “Forgive me, I just remembered I have somewhere else to be. _Anywhere_ else-”

Rynne laughed and grabbed the collar of his jacket. “Nice try,” she said, and she pulled him toward her. “You’re not getting away from me that easily.”

Fenris allowed her to pull him close, and the smile he gave her was somehow both wicked and tender all at once. He pulled his sunglasses off, then tipped up her chin with one hand.

“Getting away from you is the last thing on my mind,” he murmured.

Rynne beamed at him. The corners of his emerald-green eyes were crinkled with joy, and his smile was soft, and… Maker’s breath, he just looked so peaceful, and Rynne’s happy little heart was dancing in her chest.

She lifted her chin, and Fenris obliged her with a kiss. His fingers were gentle on her jaw, and his lips were sweet as they pulled and pressed at hers, and Rynne dreamily closed her eyes and drifted into the glory of his kiss. 

An idyllic moment later, Fenris slowly pulled away. “Choose your music wisely, Hawke,” he whispered, and he slid his sunglasses back into place.

Rynne smiled as he leaned back in his seat. “Challenge accepted,” she said. She flicked through her music library, then finally struck upon the perfect song. 

She shot Fenris a mischievous look, and he raised one eyebrow. Then she triumphantly started the song.

_Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter_  
_Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here_  
_Here comes the sun_  
_Here comes the sun, and I say_  
_It's all right_

Fenris raised his eyebrows appreciatively. “I’m humbled,” he said. “Your choice is perfect.” Then he leaned forward and started pulling off his jacket. 

Rynne watched as he freed himself from the garment. The sun’s buttery rays sharpened the pallor of his tattoos against the tawny brown of his skin, but for the first time since Rynne had known him, Fenris didn’t seem to mind the exposure of his skin. 

_You’re perfect,_ she thought. And for Rynne, he was. When she’d first met Fenris all those months ago, she hadn’t expected that he would be _this_ : the man she trusted with every part of herself, including her secrets and her life. His tattooed hands held her body and her heart with equal tenderness, and Rynne had never been happier. 

He tossed his jacket into the back seat and casually rested his arm on the wound-down window. He glanced in her direction, then tilted his head curiously as he met her gaze. “What is it?”

Rynne shrugged and smiled. “I love you,” she said. 

Fenris smiled again. The smile unfurled slowly across his face, a beautiful blooming of joy that was even wider than before, and Rynne felt her cheeks warming in response. 

He carefully tucked a strand of hair behind her silver-studded ear. “I love you, as well,” he said. He tapped the steering wheel. “Now let’s move on. Show me an adventure, Hawke.”

She grinned at him, then slid her sunglasses onto her nose. “You got it,” she said, and she put the car in gear. Minutes later, they were on the highway to Rivain, and a second voice had joined the one that was playing through the car’s speakers: Fenris was softly singing along. 

Rynne smiled. The weather was warm, and the summer breeze was refreshing in her hair. The road stretched ahead of them in a seemingly endless path, and they were free.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song that Rynne plays to kick off their Rivaini vacation is ["Here Comes The Sun" by the Beatles](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUNqsfFUwhY) \- also known as my favourite song of all time. 
> 
> For anyone who read along: THANK YOU for being here and reading this silly thing! All credit for the birth of this fic goes straight to my partner-in-crime and darling friend [@schoute](http://schoute.tumblr.com/), who is an insanely talented artist who HAS DRAWN MUCH ART FOR THIS AU (SO GO FOLLOW HER IMMEDIATELY). Without her beautiful genius brain, this AU would not exist. 
> 
> If you want to learn how Piper and Cullen got together, please check out [Luck of the Law,](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17966816/chapters/42436517) \- Piper and Cullen's modern AU love story!
> 
> And, as always, if you want to come squawk at me about Fenris (or Solas or Abelas or Blackwall or DRAGON AGE IN GENERAL), I am [Pikapeppa on Tumblr.](https://pikapeppa.tumblr.com/) Astia valla femundis! xo


	12. Rivain (Epilogue)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This little epilogue was inspired by my darlings @schoute and @essequamvideri20 on Tumblr, who made beautiful pieces of _Damned Spot_ fan art for the final chapter: [this beautiful sketch of FenRynne setting out on their roadtrip to Rivain](https://pikapeppa.tumblr.com/post/183522707754/pikapeppa-fenris-tossed-his-jacket-into-the), and [this divine drawing of FenRynne at the beach](https://pikapeppa.tumblr.com/post/183315480453/pikapeppa-beach-bums-headcanon-fenris). 
> 
> This little oneshot, and my eternal undying love, is dedicated to both of you. Xoxoxo

Hawke tossed her bag down on her beach chair and stretched her arms. “What a perfect day,” she said happily, then sat down and started rifling through her bag. 

“It does seem rather perfect for the tanning activity you were hoping for,” Fenris said. He adjusted the umbrella, then settled himself in the shade of the second beach chair and leisurely stretched out his legs. The sun was blazing bright, and even through his sunglasses, he could tell the Rivaini sky was a perfect azure blue. The white-sand beach faded into the ocean in an exquisite gradient of cerulean and emerald, and Fenris had never seen anything like it in his life.

He straightened his black t-shirt, then contentedly folded his hands over his abdomen. Meanwhile, Hawke had pulled a bottle of sunscreen from her bag, and she began applying it to her legs in brisk practiced strokes. In contrast with the brilliant blues and sandy white of the beach, Hawke was a display of bright warm colours: golden skin and chestnut hair and those raspberry-red lips of hers, and Fenris watched with shameless appreciation as she rubbed the sunscreen in around the edges of her bikini. 

She hummed to herself as she slathered herself in sunscreen up to her neck, then turned to Fenris with a smile. “Can you do my back?”

He held out his hand for the bottle and shifted his legs so she could sit between them. She continued to hum cheerfully as Fenris smoothed the sunscreen into her skin. 

Then she glanced at him over her shoulder. “Once you’re done with my back, then I can do yours,” she said brightly. 

Her expression was a picture of fake innocence, and Fenris eyed her with fond exasperation. “No, Hawke. The shirt stays on,” he told her for the third time today.

She groaned. “Come on, Fenris. No one else on this beach is wearing a shirt.” 

Fenris didn’t bother to look. He knew she was correct. Even the women were mostly bare from the waist up; Hawke’s little bikini top was one of the few tops on this beach. But this fact wouldn’t change Fenris’s mind. 

He smoothed the last dab of sunscreen under the clasp of her bikini. “No one else on this beach is covered from neck to toe in tattoos, either,” he said. 

At this, Hawke turned around halfway and met his eye. “You’re wrong about that,” she said seriously, then jerked her head to the side. “Look around.”

He raised one eyebrow, then finally gave the other beachgoers a more careful look. And to his surprise, he noticed that she was right. 

The beach was peppered with people whose skin ranged in colour from ivory to ebony. Most of the skin he saw was patterned with ink of varying intricacy spanning the full range of colours, from white to black, to gold and red and green and indigo and every shade in between. And exactly as Hawke had said, Fenris’s tattoos were hardly the most ornate on the beach. 

One man’s entire chest, back, and legs were patterned with an intricate web of tattoos that seemed to tell a story. A dark-skinned woman had an exquisite pattern of golden triangles and whorls on her forehead and cheekbones that would have made any Dalish elf weep with envy. Another young woman who couldn’t have been older than Varania had a fine tracing of red and black dots and lines from the angles of her jaw to the tips of her middle fingers, and from her hipbones to the knuckles of her toes.

Fenris pushed up his sunglasses in wonder, then turned to Hawke. “Did you know…?”

“...that body art is a huge deal in Rivain?” she finished. “Yes, of course.” 

He gazed speechlessly around the beach for a moment more, then looked at Hawke again. “Is this why you thought to bring me here?”

She laughed and awkwardly scratched the back of her neck. “Ah, I wish I could say I had that much forethought. But you know I was planning a trip here anyway, before we met. But this _is_ why I didn’t change my travel plans once I knew you’d be coming with me.” She affectionately stroked the white lines on his chin, then lifted her own tattooed left shoulder coquettishly. “We fit right in, wouldn’t you say?” 

“I… Yes, so it would seem,” he said dumbly. He tipped his sunglasses back down so he wouldn't be caught staring so blatantly, but he couldn’t help but gaze around the beach with wide eyes. He’d genuinely never seen so many heavily tattooed people in his life, and in Tevinter, Fenris had most certainly been the most heavily tattooed of all. 

_But it’s not the same,_ he thought. _These tattoos aren’t like mine._ The people on this beach had chosen their tattoos of their own free will. Every one of them probably had a story for where their ink came from, and their reasons for getting inked likely ranged from mundane to wild to purely aesthetic. But Fenris was sure no one else’s story involved an ugly combination of grief mixed with a misguided need to show fealty to a now-dead Tevinter mob boss. 

Fenris’s tattoos weren’t art. He didn’t wear them out of pride. They were a constant reminder of the lies Danarius had told him and the life he’d suffered under Danarius’s thumb.

But… nobody on this beach would know that. For once in his life, Fenris might actually blend in.

He turned back to Hawke to find her studying him with a soft little smile. “So?” she said. “Are you willing to take your shirt off now?” She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively. 

_Kaffas_ , she was single-minded. He smirked and raised one eyebrow at her, but before he could speak, she laughed and pinched his chin. “Think about it,” she said. “I’m going in the water.” She kissed him quickly on the lips, then rose from the beach chair and bolted down the beach toward the ocean.

As soon as her feet hit the water, she let out a joyful peal of laughter, then promptly fell hands-first into the waves. She clumsily rose to her feet, then shook her head like a mabari until her short dark hair was standing out around her head like a spiky halo.

She smoothed her hands over her wet hair and grinned at him. “Come on in, the water’s fine!” she yelled.

Fenris chuckled. He could barely hear her over the hissing crash of water on sand, but her message was clear. He waved a dismissive hand at her, then chuckled again when she turned her back on him and playfully shimmied her butt. 

She laughed once more, then dove back into the water and rose to the surface to float on the easy wax and wane of the ocean waves, and Fenris simply watched her for a moment. Then he dropped his gaze to his black t-shirt. 

He idly rubbed the hem of the shirt between his tattooed fingers. There was an odd feeling in his chest, like a simmering mix of anxiety and excitement. It should be easy to take his shirt off; it was just a brisk motion, no different than undressing for a shower or undressing before stretching Hawke’s naked body across his bed. But it did not feel easy or simple. The more Fenris thought about it, the more momentous it seemed to be - almost as though he’d be shedding something far heavier than a simple cotton garment. 

He lifted his eyes back to the ocean. Hawke was standing knee-deep in the water, her expression happy but focused as she dug around in the sand for some thing or another: shells or sand dollars, perhaps. Her dark spiky bangs were dripping into her eyes, and the sun was shimmering on her salt-dewed skin, and Fenris could easily imagine her humming to herself in a sweet and slightly out-of-tune voice.

He pushed himself to his feet. Then, before he could think about it any longer, before the thought of it paralyzed him with nerves, he fisted his hands in the back of his shirt and pulled it off. 

A warm, playful breeze unfurled across his bare shoulders and belly and back. Fenris dropped his shirt on the beach chair and adjusted his sunglasses, then took a deep breath and surreptitiously looked around. 

No one was staring at him. Nobody was gaping at him in fear or unflattering curiosity. A few people briefly glanced at him then casually looked away, as though he was just any other person on the beach.

“Nice ink,” someone said. 

He whipped his head around, but the girl who had commented on his tattoos was already walking away hand-in-hand with her equally tattooed girlfriend. 

“Uh… thank you,” Fenris said, feeling utterly nonplussed. The girl glanced back and gave him a friendly wave, then continued on her way. 

Fenris released a deep exhale, then slowly removed his sunglasses and placed them on the beach chair with his discarded shirt. Then, very slowly, feeling as though he was stepping toward the edge of a precipice, he stepped out of the shade and into the bright Rivaini sun. 

The sand was hot beneath his bare feet - almost unbearably hot. Fenris burrowed his toes into the sand, relishing the damp cool feel of it squishing between his toes. Then he closed his eyes and lifted his chin. 

Behind his closed eyelids, the world became a blank but brilliant orange blur. Fenris breathed in the salty sea air, then simply sank into the strange familiarity of the sun’s brilliant rays warming his skin. 

For the first time in years, the sun was beating down on Fenris’s bare shoulders. And for the first time in decades, he was actually enjoying it. 

He smiled and opened his eyes. Hawke was watching him, standing in the ocean with her hands on her hips, and the smile on her face was the most joyful thing he’d ever seen. 

He unearthed his half-buried feet from the sand and took one step toward her, then another. Suddenly he was running, running across the hot sand, running toward Hawke and leaving his black t-shirt behind, and then the salty ocean waves were licking at his calves and splashing up over his knees until he couldn’t run anymore.

Hawke grinned as he trampled awkwardly through the water toward her. Fenris reached out and grasped her hand, and a moment later, she was in his arms with her legs wrapped around his waist. 

“I knew you’d like the beach,” she chirped. “I had a feeling.” 

“I like being at the beach with you,” he said. He admired her brilliant smile, then lifted his chin and brushed her lips with a featherlight kiss. “Thank you for bringing me here,” he whispered. 

She pressed her forehead to his. Her fingers toyed with the damp hair at the nape of his neck. “I’ll bring you anywhere you want, you handsome fool,” she told him. “I would go anywhere with you.” 

Her words were guileless and candid and positively bursting with possibility. Hawke tilted her head slightly and kissed the corner of his lips, and as Fenris eagerly returned her kiss, his imagination floated away into the sultry sun-drenched sky. 

Fenris was not much of one for travelling, not after his forced cross-country flight from Danarius. But this road trip with Hawke was nothing like that. There was nothing rushed or forced about this trip; ever since they’d left Kirkwall, it had been a seamless flow of sun and sky and winding roads. 

Perhaps Rivain was just the beginning. Perhaps he and Hawke could start saving their money for a bigger, longer trip: one that would carry them from one corner of Thedas to the other. With Hawke by his side, he would happily go anywhere.

With Hawke by his side, Fenris could do anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: according to the DA Wiki, [tattoos and piercings are canonically a big part of Rivaini culture!](https://dragonage.fandom.com/wiki/Rivain#Culture_and_society)
> 
> I am [Pikapeppa on Tumblr,](https://pikapeppa.tumblr.com/) if anyone fancies hanging out and chatting Fenris with me. :)


End file.
